
Class. 
Book. 



.H-^. 



Copyiiglit'N?. 



G«F»RIGHT DEPOSm 



16 



Study of Child-Nature 



THE KINDERGARTEN STANDPOINT 






ELIZABETH HARRISON 

PRINCIPAL OF THE CHICAGO KINDERGARTEN TRAINING SCHOOL 






PUBLISHED BY 

THE CHICAGO KINDERGARTEN TRAINING SCHOOL 
Art Institute Building 

1 891 



LdlliS 



copyright, 1890. 
By Elizabeth Harrison, 

CHICAGO. 



^ 



TO 

My Own Beloved Mother, 

TO WHOM I owe all THE RICHNESS AND JOY WHICH 

come from a glad, happy childhood, do 

i dedicate this my effort to 

help other mothers. 

Elizabeth Harrison. 

Chicago, November 20, 1890. 



PREFACE. 

These Talks for Mothers and Teachers were 
given before my classes in Chicago and else- 
where. They are noiv fiiblished at the earnest 
request of the members of those classes^ and are 
in 7iearly the same form as when give7i^ which 
accounts for the number of anecdotes illustrat- 
ing different -points., as well as for the fre- 
quency of personal reminiscence. Fully aware 
of their iiiany defects., but knowing well that 
" Charity cover eth a mtiltitude of sins,'''' I give 
them with a loviiig heart to the mothers of 
America. I hope that the thought underlying 
them may be as helpful to others in the under- 
standing of little children as it has been to me. 
I trust that these pages may lead each reader 
to a deeper study of FroebeVs thotight. 

E. H. 



CONTENTS 



Preface, 
ixtroduction. 



The Body. 



Chapter I. 



Chapter II 



Chapter III. 



Chapter IV 



The Mind. ^ Chapter V 



Chapter VI. 



Chapter VII. 



The Soul. 



Chapter VIII. 



Chapter IX. 



The Instinct of 
Activity, or the 
Training of the 
Muscles. 

The Instinct of 
Investigation, or 
the Training of 
THE Senses. 

The Instinct of 
Power, or the 
Training of the 
Emotions. 

The Instinct of 
Love, or the 
Training of the 
Affections. 

The Instinct of 
Continuity, o r 
the Training of 
the Reason. 

f The Instinct of 
J Justice, or Right 
] AND Wrong Pun- 

t ISHMENTS. 

r The Instinct of 
Recognition, o r 
the Training of 
the Will. 

The Instinct of 
Reverence, o r 
the Training of 
the Worship. 

f The Instinct of 

J Imitation, or the 

] Training of the 

I Faith. 



INTKODUCTION. 



In the educational world is growing the 
realization, in a practical way, that " The hand 
that rocks the cradle rules the world." The 
importance of the first years of the child's life 
is beginning to be acknowledged; his physical 
welfare has become a recognized study, for it is 
seen that the health and strength of maturity 
depends upon this early growth. Until the time 
of Froebel, the founder of the Kindergarten 
system, scarcely any thought was given to the 
right or wrong training of the infant's natural 
instincts; few people dreamed that this had 
aught to do with the development of character 
in succeeding years. 

The child's manifestations of these inborn 
instincts have been laughed at, played with, 
and even related as interesting anecdotes by 
the fond mother, — the thought that they are 
worthy of serious study seldom entering the 
mind of the average parent. It is this study 
to which Froebel invites the mother. He calls 
it " The Science of Motherhood." 



10 Introduction. 

Investigation of apparently insignificant in- 
stincts shows them to be the germs of world- 
wide and ever-enduring truths. Hence the 
importance of the Kindergarten study. The 
mother is aided by it in the care and under- 
standing of her young child when the bond 
between them is so strong that instinct is apt 
to give the right impulse; she is also greatly 
assisted in the comprehension of her child's 
more mature years, after the growth of his 
individuality has somewhat separated them. 
" The child is father to the man " in character 
as well as in physical development. We readily 
acknowledge this when we admit that super- 
stitions cling to the wisest minds, — such as a 
distaste for beginning a piece of work on 
Friday; an uneasy sensation when the salt- 
cellar is upset; a dislike to see the new moon 
over the right shoulder, and other irrational 
prejudices. When we remember that all one's 
after-life cannot entirely obliterate them, do we 
not realize how lasting are early impressions? 

Froebel has said: "The destiny of the 
nations lies far more in the hands of women — 
the mothers — than in the hands of those who 
possess power, or those who are innovators, 
who seldom understand themselves. Wc must 
cultivate women^ who are the educators of the 



Introduction, 11 

human race, else a new generation cannot 
accomplish its task." 

One of the greatest lines of the world's work 
lies here before ns : the understanding of little 
children, in order that they may be properly 
trained. Correctly understood, it demands of 
women her highest endeavor, the broadest 
culture, the most complete command of herself, 
and the understanding of her resources and 
environments. It demands of her that she 
become a physician, an artist, a teacher, a 
poet, a philosopher, a priest. In return, it 
gives her an insight into science, into history, 
into art, into literature, into human nature, 
such as no other culture can command, because 
each of these realms has to be entered that its 
wealth may be conquered as an aid in rightly 
understanding the little child entrusted to her 
care, not for the added glory it will bring to 
her. 

The following facts place this study of 
child-culture upon the broad basis of a 
science. 

Fikst: The child bears within himself 
instincts which can be trained upward or 
downward. 

Second : These instincts give early mani- 
festation OF their existence. 



12 Introduction, 

Third: The mother's loving guidance 
can be changed from uncertain instinct into 
unhesitating insight. 

Let me illustrate this change of instinct 
into insight. A young mother, who had been 
studying Froebel for some months, placed her 
four-year-old boy in my Kindergarten. I soon 
saw that he was suffering from self-conscious- 
ness. In a conversation with the mother, I 
told her that I had discovered in her child a 
serious obstacle to mental growth, viz., self- 
consciousness. "What is the cause of it?" 
said she. " If the child had not such a 
sensible mother," I replied, "I should say that 
he had been ' shown off ' to visitors until the 
habit of thinking that every one is looking at 
him has become fixed in his mind." Instantly 
the blood mounted to her face and she said: 
" That is what has been done. You know that 
he sings very well ; last Avinter my young sister 
frequently had him stand on a chair beside 
the piano and sing for guests. I felt at the 
time that it was not right, but if I had known 
then what I now do, I would have died rather 
than have allowed it." 

Instinct is often overruled by others ; insighi 
makes the mother stand invincible for her 
child's right to be properly brought up. 



CHAPTER I 



THE BODY. 



THE INSTINCT OF ACTIVITY, OB THE TRAINING 
OF THE MUSCLES. 

All little children are active; constant 
activity is nature's way of securing physi- 
cal development. A seemingly superfluous 
amount of nervous force is generated in 
each growing child. The organs of respira- 
tion, circulation and digestion use their need- 
ful share. The rest of this nervous power is 
expended by the infant, in tossing his limbs 
about, in creeping and crawling; by the grow- 
ing boy, in climbing and running; by the 
young girl — who must not climb or run, as 
such conduct is not ladylike— in twisting, 
squirming and giggling ; thus gaining for her 
muscles, in spite of prohibition, some of the 
needed exercise. Making a restless child 
"keep still" is a repression of this nerv- 
ous energy, which irritates the whole nervous 
system, causing ill-temper, moroseness and 
general uncomfortableness. If this force 
13 



\ 



14* The Instinct of Activity, or 

could be properly expended, the child would 
be always sunny-tempered. The mother's in- 
stinctive feeling that the restlessness of her 
child is necessary to its well-being, gives her 
strength to endure what Avould be unendurable 
confusion and noise to any one who has not 
this maternal instinct. But the wise mother 
who has changed this dim instinct into lumin- 
ous insight, turns the riot into joyous, happy 
play or other wholesome activity. By this 
course not only does she lessen the strain upon 
her own nerves, but what is of more importance, 
often avoids a clash of will power between her- 
self and her child; such clashing of wills being 
always fraught with harm to both. 

In order that this activity, generally first 
noticed in the use of the hands, might be 
trained into right and ennobling habits rather 
than be allowed to degenerate into wrong and 
often degrading ones, Froebel arranged his 
charming set of finger games for the mother to 
teach her babe while he is yet in her arms; 
thus establishing the right activity before the 
wrong one can assert itself. 

In such little songs as the following: 

" This is the mother, good and dear. 
This the father, with hearty cheer, 
This is the brother, stout and tall, 



The Training of the Muscles. 15 

This is the sister, who plays with her doll, 
And this is the baby, the pet of all. 
Behold tbe good family, great and small!" 

the child is led to personify his fingers and to 
regard them as a small but united family over 
which he has control. Of course, this song 
can be varied to suit the phase of family-life 
with which he is surrounded. For instance: 

" This is the auntie, who wears a bright shawl, 
This is the brother, who plays with his ball," 

or like rhythmical descriptions. The little fin- 
gers may be put to sleep, one by one, with 
some such words as these: 

" Go to sleep, little thumb, that's one, 
Go to sleep, pointing finger, two, 
Go to sleep, middle finger, three, 
Go to sleep, ring finger, four, 
Go to sleep, little finger, five. 
I take them and tuck them snugly all in bed, sound asleep. 
Let naught disturb them." 

To the little fingers thus quietly closed 
against the palm of the hand can be sung some 
soft lullaby, and the quieting effect upon the 
babe is magical. 

^ Once while travelling upon a railway train, 
I watched for a time the vain endeavors of a 
young mother to persuade her restless boy of 
two years to be undressed for bed. Finally I 



16 The Tnstinct of Aciiviiy, or 

went to the rescue, and began to talk to tlie 
little fellow about the queer finger family that 
lived on his hand. I gave him a name for each 
member of this family, and in a few minutes 
suggested that they were sleepy and that we 
had better put them to bed. He was delighted. 
Singing softly the ditty just mentioned, I 
showed him how to fold first one, then another 
of the chubby fingers in seeming sleep. When 
we had finished he was very still ; the pleasing 
activity had called his thoughts away from his 
capricious, willful little self; he had something 
to do. " Now," said I, "do you think you can 
undress without waking these babies ? " He 
nodded a pleased assent. The mother took 
him off and in a short time came back and 
thanked me, saying, that w^hile he was being 
undressed his thoughts had been concentrated 
upon keeping his fingers undisturbed, and that 
he had dropped asleep with his hand tightly 
closed. She was astonished at this power of 
the game, yet the device was simple ; the nerv- 
ous, restless activity of the child was turned 
from a wrong channel into a right one. By 
many such means, Froebel would have the 
baby's fingers seem to him tiny people of whom 
he has charge. 



Tlie Training of the Muscles. 17 

When these games are emphasized with an 
older child who can work with his hands, there 
is danger of his separating, in thought, him- 
self from his fingers, making them alone res- 
ponsible for their deeds, and of his setting 
entirely aside his own obligation in the mat- 
ter. For example: In my Kindergarten there 
was a boy who had a very bad habit with his 
hands, a fault not uncommon with children of 
all classes. At once I laid more stress upon 
the finger families and his care of them. After 
a day or two had passed, I noticed that he was 
not following directions in sewing his card. 
"Oh, dear!" I said, "how came these crooked 
lines here?" 

"Well, those fingers, they did it. They 
don't care how they work," was his reply. I 
saw that I had brought out too much their in- 
dividuality, and too little his accountability 
for them. " Ah," I answered, " but who has 
charge of this family? You must help the 
fingers take out these wrong stitches and show 
them how to put in the right ones." 

To some these incidents may seem childish, 
yet underlying them is one of the world's 
greatest principles of development, viz: culti- 
vate right tendencies in humanity and the 
wrong ones must die out. Build up the posi- 
2 



18 The Instinct of Activity, or 

five side of your child's nature and the nega- 
tive side will not need to he unbuilt. 

Let me illustrate more fully this important 
thought. At the age of two or three years, 
according to the immaturity or maturity of 
the child, the instinct of investigation begins 
to show itself, developing in various ways an 
appalling power of destruction; such as tear- 
ing to pieces his doll, smashing his toy-bank, 
cutting holes in his apron, and many other in- 
dications of seeming depravity. It is a criti- 
cal period. Without this important instinct, 
man would have made but little progress in 
civilization; it is the basis of scientific and 
mathematical research, of study in all fields. 
This legitimate and natural investigative ac- 
tivity needs only to be led from the negative 
path of destruction, into the positive one of 
construction. Instead of vainly attempting to 
suppress the new-born power of the young 
pioneer, or searcher after truth, guide it 
aright. Give him playthiugs which can be 
taken to pieces and put together again without 
injury to the material; dolls which can be 
dressed and undressed; horses which can be 
harnessed and unharnessed; carts to which 
horses may be fastened at will, or any like 
toys. Blocks which can be built into various 



The Training of the Muscles. 19 

new forms are admirable playthings for child- 
ren ; the more of their own ideas they can put 
into the re-arrangement, the better. It is the 
divine right of each human being to re-con- 
struct in his own way, ivhen that ivay does not 
interfere with the care of property, or the rights 
of others. The glorious instinct of creativity 
— one of the best evidences that man is made 
in the image of God — also is cultivated^ 

Froebel's system of child-culture is based 
upon laws that are supported by the three-fold 
testimony of nature, history, and revelation. 
We see these positive and negative possibili- 
ties of which I have just been speaking, in all 
creation. In the physical world they appeal 
to our senses for recognition. Look at any 
wayside field with its luxuriant crop of weeds ; 
one may plow and harrow, may prepare the 
soil with diligence, but unless the right kind 
of seeds are planted, the weeds will again have 
full possession. I was told by a leading phy- 
sician in the Engadine Yalley in Switzerland, 
who had made a life-time study of diseases of 
the lungs, that if a person inheriting consump- 
tive tendencies were placed in the right cli- 
mate, his constitution could so be built up 
that the dread tendency would die out, or re- 
main dormant and not develop, even though 



20 The Instinct of Activity, or 

the inheritance had been continuous throuofh 
many generations. This statement was con- 
firmed by a prominent London physician, and 
1 believe is now the accepted theory. 

The same principle is shown in the world of 
history, that our reason may assent to it. As 
we thoughtfully turn its pages, what is the 
record we find? Is it not as soon as a 
nation has arrived at a period when pioneer 
work ceases, when conquest over surrounding 
nature, or adjacent nations, is no longer a 
necessity, when wealth has brought leisure, 
that then, and not until then, self-indulg- 
ing vice and destroying corruption creep in ? 
The positive activity of the nation has ceased, 
and its negative activity at once begins. 

With equal clearness is this proclaimed in 
the world of revelation that we may know it 
to be the truth of God. What lesson is 
taught in the Scripture parable of the man 
who drove out the devil, then swept and gar- 
nished his house and left it empty, when seven 
other demons came and dwelt therein? 

This thought was well understood by the 
mother whose boy of fourteen was coming 
home alone for a summer vacation, a journey 
of a day and a half. Knowing that he had 
once before fallen into the habit of reading 



The Training of the Muscles. 21 

bad books, and fearing that his will-power 
was not yet strong enough to resist the temp- 
tation to read the trash sold upon the train, 
she bought new copies of the " St. Nicholas" 
and "Youths' Companion" and sent them to 
him with the loving message that he would 
probably wish something to read on the way. 
When he reached home he began at once to 
tell her of an article in the " St. Nicholas " 
which had attracted him, and of a " boss 
story " he had found in the " Youth's Com- 
panion." No thought had entered his mind 
of buying other reading matter, nor had there 
been any chafing sense of prohibition. The 
success of our Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tions is to be attributed to this same positive 
upbuilding principle. When they wish to 
close a saloon, they start a cofPee-house near 
by; to draw idle and listless young men from 
the attractions of gambling hells, they open 
lecture halls and free reading rooms; the ex- 
hilaration of healthful exercise in the gymna- 
sium counteracts the excitement of the low 
dance hall. They say to the young men of 
our cities, not simply, " Don't go there," but, 
"Do come here." To all thinking observers, 
such facts as these must bring more or less 
conviction that it is by supplying positive 



22 The Instinct of Activity, or 

right activities for our children that we sup- 
press the wrong ones. 

More than this, a negative method trains a 
child inevitably into a critical, pessimistic 
character very depressing to us all. For in- 
stance: a mother came to me in utter discour- 
agement, saying: "What shall I do with my 
five-year-old boy ? He is simply the personi- 
fication of the word wonH^ After the les- 
son was over, I walked home with her. A 
beautiful child, with golden curls and great 
dancing black eyes, came running out to meet 
us and with all the impulsive joy of childhood, 
threw his arms around her. What were her first 
words ? " Don't do that, James, you will muss 
mamma's dress." I had already suspected 
where the trouble lay; now I knew that I was 
right. In a moment it was: " Don't twist so, 
my son." " Don't make that noise." In the 
four or five minutes we stood at her steps, she 
had said donH five times. Can you wonder 
that when she said, " Kun in the house now, 
Mamma is coming in a minute." he replied: 
" No, I don't want to." Such training devel- 
opes unduly the critical faculty and criticism 
leads to separation from our fellow-beings. 
Therefore, care must be taken, not only that 
the child himself be not over-criticised, but 



The Training of the Muscles. 23 

also that other people shall not be criticised 
in his presence ; he is injured far more than 
they are helped. Unless some principle is in- 
volved, let the people about him pass for he- 
roes and heroines. 

Again, a year or two ago, I was visiting at 
a friend's house, when in the course of con- 
versation, she said: " I do not know what is 
the difficulty in my sister's family. She tries 
to train her children aright, and yet they are 
almost unmanageable." The difficulty was re- 
vealed to me in a call made soon after. The 
mother sat with her two-year-old babe on her 
lap. She told me that the child could say 
only a few words ; that he was not yet able to 
talk. Two of her children were playing in an- 
other part of the room. In a short time they 
became rather boisterous. The mother did not 
notice it, but the two-year-old turned around 
and in an impatient tone called out: "Boys 
' top'." Here was the trouble. Babies, like 
parrots, learn to say first the words which they 
most frequently hear. Consequently this little 
one must have repeatedly heard the words, 
"Boys, stop!" which was merely the suppres- 
sion of some annoying or wrong thing, and not a 
substitution of a right one in its place. It had 
not been: "Boys, run out in the yard and 



24 The Instinct of Adiviiy, or 

gather some flowers for the tea-table," or, 
"Boys, go up stairs and finish your sawing," 
or some like directing of their energy, but 
merely, "Boys, stop!" So they had undoubt- 
edly "stopped" one prohibited thing and 
gone to another. 

We find the same elements in literature. In 
my opinion such teachers as George Eliot are 
not healthful factors in the spiritual growth 
of young lives. Do not such writers em- 
phasize the discordant sido of life, rather 
than the harmonious one ? In one of the num- 
bers of the British Review, the author just 
spoken of has given to the world the true stand- 
ard of measurement for a great writer. She 
says: " We do not value a writer in proportion 
to his freedom from faults, but in proportion 
to his positive excellences, to the variety of 
thought he contributes or suggests, to the 
amount of gladdening and energizing emotion 
he excitesy This is in accordance with Froe- 
bel's doctrines, but her literary work failed to 
rise to the height of her insight. If we take 
her own words as the test, what must be the 
judgment of the reader who, as he turn the last 
page of " Middlemarch," realizes that every 
worthy or lovable character in it has been 
so warped and marred by circumstances, that 



The Training of the Muscles. 25 

admiration has half turned into loving pity. 
" Daniel Deronda " and her other books leave 
us in the same depressed state. From this 
standpoint, must we not admit that the great 
English woman is not as helpful or as whole- 
some as many a writer who has far less brain 
power and artistic skill than she, but who 
leaves us with a strong feeling that right 
rules in God's universe ? Emerson has said: 
" Even Schopenhauer preaching pessimism is 
odious." 

If the power of optimism is so great in lit- 
erature, it is even greater in life. The posi- 
tive method of training builds up the cheering, 
optimistic character which is so much needed. 
AVho are the men and women that are lifting 
the world upward and onward? Are they not 
those who encourage more than ihey criticise f 
who do more than they undo? The strongest, 
most beautiful characters are those who see 
the good that is in each person, who think the 
best that is possible of everyone, who as soon 
as they form a new acquaintance see his fine- 
est characteristics. The Kindergarten world 
gives innumerable illustrations of how this 
type of character may be developed. 

A small child was brought to me who was 
the most complete embodiment of the result of 



26 The Instinct of Activity, or 

negative training witli which I have ever come 
in contact. It was, " No, I don't want to 
play;" " No, I won't sit by that boy"; "No, I 
don't like the blocks." It was one continual 
" No." No one pleased him; nothing satisfied 
him. Though not yet five years old, he was 
already an isolated character, unhappy himself 
and constantly making others uncomfortable. 
I saw that the child needed more than any- 
thing else positive encouragement, to be led 
into a spirit of participation with others. The 
third day after his arrival another child 
chanced to bring a small pewter soldier to the 
Kindergarten. As is usual with each little 
treasure brought from home, it was examined 
and admired and at play-time it was allowed to 
choose a game. This last privilege brought 
to the new boy's face a look of contempt, which 
sharply contrasted with the happy, sympathe- 
tic faces of the other children. Soon after we 
had taken our places at the work-tables with 
the toy-soldier standing erect in front of little 
Paul, his proud owner, I heard a whizzing 
sound and Paul's voice crying out: " Joseph 
has knocked my soldier off the table and he 
did it on purpose, too!" I turned to the scene 
of disaster ; the soldier lay on the other side of 
the room, and Joseph, the iconoclastic inva- 



The Training of the Muscles. 27 

der into our realm of peace, with defiance in 
his face, sat looking at me. The first impulse 
was to say: " Why did you do that? It was 
naughty; go and pick up the soldier." That, 
however, would have been another negation 
added to the number which had already been 
daily heaped upon him, so, instead, I said, 
" Oh well, Paul, never mind. Joseph does not 
know that we try to make each other happy in 
kindergarten." 

" Come here, Joseph, I want you to be my 
messenger boy." The role of messenger boy, 
or helper to distribute the work, is always a 
much-coveted office; partly, from an inborn 
delight in children to assist in the work of 
older people ; partly, from the distinction which 
arises in the imaginary wearing of the brass 
buttons and gilt band. As if expecting some 
hidden censure Joseph came a little reluctant- 
ly to where I was sitting. In a few minutes 
he was busy running back and forth giving to 
each child the envelope containing the work 
of the next half hour. As soon as the joy of 
service had melted him into a mood of com- 
radeship, I whispered: " Run over now and get 
Paul's soldier." Instantly he ran across the 
room, picked up the toy and placing it on the 
table before its rightful owner, quietly slipped 



28 The Instinct of Activity^ or 

into his own place and began his work. His 
whole nature for the time being was changed 
into good-humored fellowship with all man- 
kind. 

Similar opportunities for like transforma- 
tions may be found in the home life. A friend 
came to me and said: " What shall I do with 
my Willie? He dallies so about everything 
that he has to do. If I send him upstairs 
after my thimble or thread, it may be a half 
hour or even an hour before he returns. I 
have scolded him and scolded him, but it 
seems to do no good." 

" By scolding," I replied, " you have em- 
phasized the fault you wished to cure and 
have separated yourself from your boy. Now, 
try to emphasize the opposite virtue, prompt- 
ness, by praising him for it when you have the 
opportunity." 

" Oh, there's no use in talking of that," she 
answered, "he is never prompt." 

" Then," said I, " if he is never so volun- 
tarily, make an occasion. Ask him to go to the 
kitchen, or some other part of the house on an 
errand for you ; tell him that you will count 
while he is gone. When he gets back, praise 
him for having returned more quickly than 
usual. At dinner tell his father as if it were 



The Training of ihe Muscles. 29 

a fine bit of news. This will make it a meri- 
torious achievement in your son's eyes.'^ 

The next week she came to me with her 
face fairly radiant and said: "I have been 
counting and Willie has been trotting ever 
since last week." I laughed and told her that 
her mother- wit would soon have to hunt up 
some new device. 

In Harriet Martineau's "Household Educa- 
tion " is a chapter on "Keverence." She 
shows how a child, lacking this virtue, should 
not be constantly criticised for his disrespect 
or irreverence, but instead needs to have his 
eyes opened to the wonders of creation, that 
the majesty and power of God displayed in 
His works may fill his heart with awe and 
hush it into the needed reverence. On the 
other hand, the child who is fearful and timid, 
over-reverent, really superstitious, ought not to 
be laughed at and ridiculed, but to have the 
power which is within himself developed, until 
courage and self-reliance restore the lacking 
balance to his character. This method of treat- 
ment bears at once practical results. 

Many a mother says earnestly to herself: 
"What shall I do with my half -grown boy, his 
tone and manner are so lacking in respect? 
Or, the troublesome girl who almost defies 



30 Tlip, Instinct of Activity, or 

authority." Keproof but calls forth a pert re- 
ply, perhaps long argument which establishes 
something of equality between parent and 
child. The real question is not how to sup- 
press this lack of respect for authority, but 
how to develop the opposite virtue. One of 
the favorite sayings of Dr. William T. Harris, 
the well-known educator, is this: that every 
man has two selves, the great self of humanity 
and the institutional world, and the little self 
of individuality. Such a child should learn 
to compare his great self with his individual 
self, then egotism and self-assertion will cease. 
What has he done, compared with the achieve- 
ments of mankind? What are his rights, 
when the rights of the State at large are ex- 
amined? All true patriotism, which demands 
the glad laying down of life for country, arises 
from the realization of this larger self. 

With this principle in mind, let the mother 
study the line of thought which most attracts 
her child, that he may perceive that she has a 
deeper, stronger grasp of the subject than he 
can at present hope to have. As a rule, child- 
ren worship skill of brain or hand. To illus- 
trate: a mother completely cured her eight- 
year-old daughter of a spirit of contradiction 
by reading ahead of the child some books on 



The Training of the Muscles. 31 

Natural History, and telling the contents to 
her in their daily walks. The girl soon 
learned to look up to the mother as a marvel 
of wisdom and authority on all Natural His- 
tory subjects, and the feeling of respect in 
this realm was easily transferred to others. 
Over and over again have I seen similar chan- 
ges brought about in a child's attitude towards 
older people, by like training. 

Mothers, so cultivate the rational element in 
yourselves, that you can see that every fault in 
your child is simply the lack of some virtue. 
In the inner chamber of your own souls study 
your children; confess their faults to your- 
selves, not to your neighbors, and ask what is 
lacking that these defects exist. Like Nehe- 
miah of old, build up the wall where it is the 
weakest ; if your child is selfish, it is unselfish- 
ness he needs ; if he is untruthful, it is accuracy 
which is lacking; perhaps he is tyrannical 
to the younger brother or sister; it is the ele- 
ment of nurture or tenderness which should be 
developed. 

There is one caution which must be given 
in regard to the matter of approval. One 
should be sure the effort is a genuine one, else 
commendation will foster a species of hypocri- 
sy which is worse than the fault sought to be 
eradicated. 



32 The Instinct of Activity. 

Dante in his Divine Comedy places heathen 
philosophers and poets in Limbo, a place 
neither heaven nor hell, but he gives them 
the privilege of appreciating the merits of the 
lost souls as they pass along. This is enough 
to make of Limbo, or any other spot, a heaven. 
You have it in your power to place this heaven 
within your child, and nothing on earth can 
entirely quench the happiness it will create. 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE INSTINCT OF INVESTIGATION, OR THE TRAIN- 
ING OF THE SENSES. 

There is perhaps no instinct of the child 
more important and less guarded than the exer- 
cise of his senses. The inner being awakes by 
means of the impressions conveyed to the young 
brain through those avenues. The baby be- 
gins this life-work as soon as his eyes can fix 
themselves on any point in space, as soon as 
his tiny hand can grasp any object of the ma- 
terial world. Although, in reality, the three- 
fold nature of the child cannot be separated, for 
the sake of closer study we may consider the 
subject from three standpoints: first, the phys- 
ical value; second, the intellectual value; third, 
the moral value of the right training of the 
senses. 

The one thing which prevents most of us 
from being that which we might have been, 
is the dull, stupid way in which we have used 
our senses. Thousands of us having eyes to 
see, see not; having ears to hear, hear not; 
in the literal, as well as the spiritual, sense 

3 33 



34 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

of the words. Question any two persons who 
have listened to the same sermon or lecture, 
and you will discover how much one has heard 
which has escaped the other. Talk with any 
intelligent acquaintance about a picture gallery 
or a foreign city, which you both have vis- 
ited, and you will be covered with chagrin 
by the realization of how much you did not 
see. 

"The artist," says George Eliot, "becomes 
the true teacher by giving us his higher sensi- 
bilities as a medium, a delicate acoustic or 
optical instrument, bringing home to our 
coarser senses that which would otherwise be 
unperceived by us." The joy which comes 
from a sunset cloud, the happiness which the 
song of a bird may produce, the poetry and 
glory of all creation lie unseen about us be- 
cause these windows of the soul have not been 
opened. 

Half the wealth of the world is lost to 
most of us from lack of power to perceive. 
The difference between so-called clever children 
and intelligent ones is largely a difference in 
their sense-perception. For the purpose of 
training aright these much-neglected instru- 
ments, the Kindergarten has games in which 
first one sense and then another is exercised 



The Training of ihe Senses. 35 

And strengthened. For example, tlie cliild is 
allowed to shnt his eyes and by touch to tell 
the name of an object, or from his hearing 
to tell the object struck and what struck it, or 
by taste or smell to describe and name the 
thing placed before him. But the teacher or 
mother who realizes the higher need does not 
let the child rest in the mere sejise impression. 
He is given two objects that he may contrast 
them, or he hears two differing sounds, smells 
two odors, tastes two flavors, and is led to con- 
trast the one with the other, that the higher 
faculty of comparison may also be developed 
by the play. Thus the little ears learn to hear 
soft notes that our duller ones can not catch; 
thus the young eyes learn to recognize finer 
shades of color than our less trained ones can 
perceive. 

The habit of contrasting or comparing in 
material things leads to a fineness of distinc- 
tion in higher matters. John Euskin and like 
thinkers claim that a perception of and love 
for the beautiful in nature leads directly into 
a discernment of the beautiful in the moral 
world. 

The intellectual value of a clear and definite 
training of the senses is usually perceived by 
any thinking mind. The child who has early 



36 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

learned to notice the difference between sweet 
and sour, between smooth and rough, between 
straight and crooked in material things, is the 
sooner able to transfer the meaning to intellect- 
ual qualities. He more readily understands the 
meaning of " sweet disposition," "sour temper," 
" smooth manner," "rough speech," " straight 
conduct," " crooked dealings," and the like. 
Children begin to make this higher use of their 
vocabulary as soon as they thoroughly com- 
prehend the physical meaning of the word. Oc- 
casionally they put the object into the new sen- 
tence, often making laughable mistakes, and 
reminding the listener of the days of the child- 
hood of the race, when a brave chieftain was 
called a lion man, the shrewd leader was named 
the fox. One morning we had hyacinth bulbs ; 
we examined them and compared them with 
some blossoming hyacinths which stood upon 
the window-sill. A day or two after, an onion 
was brought in by a delighted child, as another 
fat round flower -baby for us to plant. I had 
some difficulty in making them see the differ- 
ence, and finally cut the onion open, and, blind- 
ing their eyes, let them smell first the flower 
and then the onion bulb. An hour or two later 
one of the little girls spoke in an irritated, pet- 
ulant tone to her neighbor who had accident- 



The Training of the Senses. 37 

ally knocked over her blocks. " Look out," said 
a little one the other side of her, " or you'll 
have an onion voice soon! " The sense of this 
child had not been sufficiently trained to enable 
her to abstract or detach the property " dis- 
agreeable " from the object, so the entire onion 
had to be dragged into her warning. The 
sooner the child is freed from the necessity of 
using objects to express his thought, the sooner 
he becomes able to communicate his inner 
thought to the outer world. When he learns 
the finer distinctions of the physical properties 
of matter, his vocabulary becomes enriched ten- 
fold, and he obtains that much -needed, much- 
coveted gift, "the power of utterance," for the 
lack of which most of us go like dumb crea- 
tures about the world, so far as the giving forth 
of our higher selves is concerned. 

The moral value of the complete control of 
the senses has not been so universally recog- 
nized. Bain and other authorities on mental 
science divide the senses into two groups; 
first, the lower: taste, smell, and touch, as re- 
lated to organic life, i. e. hunger, thirst, reple- 
tion, suffocation, warmth, and other sensations 
whose office relates to the upbuilding of the 
body; and second, the higher: touch proper, 
hearing and sight, or those which relate to 



38 The Instinct of Investigation^ or 

tlie outside world. The former are called the 
loiDer senses from the fact that they aid less 
directly the mental growth, by producing less 
vivid pictures in the mind. For instance, the 
remembrance called forth by the words "sweet 
apple," or " odor of violets," is not so distinct 
as that given by the words, "large apple," 
"blue violets." To a limited extent the world 
at large has acknowledged this distinction, in- 
tellectually, between the lower and the higher 
senses, has directed the training of the eye and 
the ear, and is now struggling to place in the 
school curriculum a systematized teaching of 
the sense of touch. But the overwhelming 
moral need of mankind lies in the world of the 
lower senses. The non-training of these is ex- 
ceedingly dangerous because they have direct 
effect upon the will. Any child turns more 
quickly from a bad odor than from a bad pic- 
ture, comes with more alacrity to get a siceet- 
meat than to hear some pleasing sound. Is it 
not the same with most adults? Are not the 
invitations to dinner more frequently accepted 
than those to hear fine music ? Are not our 
sympathies aroused more readily by a tale of 
physical suffering than by one of demoralizing 
surroundings? Notwithstanding these facts, 
the two lower senses of taste and smell have 



- The Training of fJie Senses. 39 

been left almost entirely to tlie haphazard edu- 
cation of circumstances. Sad indeed have been 
the results. 

As we look abroad over the world, what do 
we perceive to be the chief cause of the wrecks 
and ruins, of the wretchedness and misery which 
lie about us? Why have we on every hand 
such dwarfed and stunted characters? For 
what reason do crimes, too polluting to be men- 
tioned save where remedy is sought, poison our 
moral atmosphere until our great cities become 
fatal to half the young men and women who 
come to them ? Why do our clergy and other 
reformers have to labor so hard to attract the 
hearts of men to what is in itself glorious and 
beautiful ? 

Is it not, in a majority of cases, because man- 
kind has not learned to subordinate the giritifi- 
cation of physical appetite to rational ends? It 
is to be seen in every phase of society ; from the 
rich and favored dame, so enervated by soft 
chairs and tempered lights and luxurious sur- 
roundings that she is blind to the sight of mis- 
ery and deaf to the cry of despair, down 
through the grades where we find the luxuries 
of the table the only luxuries indulged in, and 
" plain living and high thinking " the excep- 
tion, still farther down from these respectable 



40 Tlte Insfincf of InvesHgaiion, or 

phases of self-inclalgence to the poor drunkard 
who sacrifices all comforts of the home, all 
peace of the family life, for the gratification of 
his insatiable thirst, down to the pitiable wretch 
who sells her soul that her body may live. 

Do not their lives, all of tliem, contradict 
that significant question of the Son of God: 
" Is not the body more than the raiment?" " Is 
not the life more than the meat?" 

Let us turn from these distressing pictures 
to seek such remedy as the scientific investiga- 
tion of the senses may offer. 

The sense of taste has two offices, relish and 
power to discriminate; the first, for the pro- 
ducing of certain pleasant sensations in the 
mouth or stomach, and the second, for the judg- 
ing between wholesomeness and unwholesome- 
ness of food, the latter being taste proper. 

The former is the gratification of the sense 
for the sake of the sensation, and leads through 
over-indulgence directly into gluttony, which, 
in its turn, leads into sensuality. In history 
not until a nation begins to send far and wide 
for delicacies and condiments for its markets 
and tables does it become voluptuous and sen- 
sual When we speak of " the degenerate days 
of Rome " do not pictures of their over-loaded 
tables rise before the mind's eye? 



The Training of the Senses. 41 

We need not have turned to other times for 
illustrations of this truth. Who are the " high 
livers " of to-day ? Are they not too often sen- 
sualists as well ? 

The latter' use of this organ of sensation leads 
to discrimination, which discrimination pro- 
duces wholesome restraint upon undue eating; 
this restraint engenders self-control, making the 
moral will-power over the bodily appetHe — 
man^s greatest safeguard in the hour of temp- 
tation. In the physical world, we know that 
rank vegetation needs to be pruned and checked 
if it is to give to man its best fruits ; thus na- 
ture teaches us her lesson. 

In the intellectual world, the prophets and 
seers have always seen the close connection 
between the right feeding of the body and the 
control of the sensual appetites. Long ago 
Plato in " The Kepublic " would have all books 
banished which contained descriptions of 
the mere pleasures of food, drink, and love, 
classing the three under one head. What an 
enormous amount of so-called literature would 
have to be swept out of the libraries of to-day, 
were that mandate sent forth! Dante, with 
that marvelous vision of his which seemed to 
see through all disguises and all forms of sin 
back to the causes of the same, places gluttony 



42 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

and sensuality in the same circle of tlie In- 
ferno. At least two great branches of the 
Christian church, the Roman Catholic and the 
Protestant Episcopal, have realized the moral 
value of placing the appetites under the con- 
trol of the will, in their establishment and 
maintenance of the season of Lent. Let him 
who would scoff at the observance of this sea- 
son of restraint, try for six weeks to go with- 
out his favorite article of food, and he will real- 
ize for himself the amount of will-power it re- 
quires. To me, the story of Daniel derives its 
significance, not so much from the fearless 
coui'age with which that " Great Heart " dared 
death in the lion's den, as from the fact that 
as a child he had moral control enough to 
turn from the king's sumptuous table and eat 
simple pulse and drink pure water. Such 
self-control must produce the courage and the 
manhood which will die for a principle. So, in 
telling this story, ever loved by childhood, 
we always emphasize the earlier struggle and 
victory rather than the later. 

Tlie perfect character is the character with 
the perfectly controlled icill ; therefore, the 
heroes of the Kindergarten stories are mightier 
than they who have taken a city, for they have 
conquered themselves. The greatest battles of 



The Training of the Senses. 43 

the world are the battles which are fought 
within the human breast ; and, alas, the great- 
est defeats are here also ! 

A writer in a recent article in The Christian 
Union showed that a child's inheritance of cer- 
tain likes and dislikes in the matter of food does 
not in the least forbid the training of his taste 
towards that which is healthful and upbuild- 
ing, it merely adds an element to be considered 
in the training. 

Another gifted writer of our own nation, 
Horace Bushnell, in his book called " Christian 
Nurture " utters these impressive words: " The 
child is taken when his training begins, in a 
state of naturalness as respects all the bodily 
tastes and tempers, and the endeavor should 
be to keep him in that key, to let no stimula- 
tion of excess or delicacy disturb the simplicity 
of nature, and no sensual pleasure in the name 
of food become a want or expectation of his 
appetite. Any artificial appetite begun is the 
beginning of distemper, disease and a general 
disturbance of natural proportion. Intemper- 
ance ! The woes of intemperate drink ! how 
dismal the story, when it is told ; how dreadful 
the picture when we look upon it. From what 
do the father and mother recoil with a greater 
and more total horror of feeling, than the pos- 



44 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

sibility tliat their child is to be a drunkard? 
Little do they remember that he can be, even 
before he has so much as tasted the cup ; and 
that they themselves can make him so, virtual- 
ly without meaning it, even, before he has got- 
ten his language. Nine-tenths of the intem- 
perate drinking begins, not in grief and desti- 
tution, as we often hear, but in vicious feeding. 
Here the scale and order of simplicity is first 
broken, and then what shall a distempered or 
distemperate life run to, more certainly than 
what is intemperate? False feeding engenders 
false appetite, and when the soul is burning all 
through in the fires of false appetite, what is 
that but a universal uneasiness? And what 
will this uneasiness more actually do than par- 
take itself to the pleasure and excitement of 
drink?" Much more that is suggestive and 
helpful to the mother is given in his chapter 
entitled " Physical Nurture to be a means of 
Grace." 

Froebel, from whose eagle eye nothing which 
related to the child seemed to escape, saw this 
danger, and in his "Education of Man" says: 
"In the early years the child's food is a matter 
of very great importance; not only may the 
child by this means be made indolent or active, 
sluggish or mobile, dull or bright, inert or 



The Training of the Senses. 45 

vigorous, but, indeed, for his entire life. Im- 
pressions, inclinations, appetites, which the 
child may have derived from his food, the turn 
it may have given to his senses and even to his 
life as a whole, can only with difficulty be set 
aside, even when the age of self-dependence 
has been reached ; they are one with his whole 
physical life, and therefore intimately connected 
with his spiritual life. And again, parents and 
nurses should ever remember, as underlying 
every precept in this direction, the following 
general principle: that simplicity and frugality 
in food and in other physical needs during the 
years of childhood enhance man's power of 
attaining happiness and vigor — true creative- 
ness in every respect. Who has not noticed 
in children, overstimulated by spices and ex- 
cesses of food, appetites of a very low order, 
from which they can never again be freed — 
appetites which, even when thoy seem to have 
been suppressed, only slumber, and in times 
of opportunity return with greater power, 
threatening to rob man of all his dignity 
and to force him away from his duty." 

Then comes with an almost audible sigh 
these words : " It is by far easier than we think 
to promote and establish the welfare of man- 
kind. All the means are simple and at hand, 



46 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

yet we see them not. You see them perhaps, 
but do not notice them. In their simplicity, 
availability, and nearness, they seem too insig- 
nificant, and we despise them. We seek help 
from afar, although help is only in and through 
ourselves. Hence, at a later period half or all 
our accumulated luealth can not procure for our 
children what greater insight and keener vision 
discern as their grecdest good. This they must 
miss, or enjoy but partially or scantily. It 
might have been theirs in full measure, had 
we expended very much less for their physical 
comfort." Then he exclaims in ringing tones, 
as the enormous significance of the subject 
grows upon him: "Would that to each young 
newly married couple there could be shown in 
all its vividness, only one of the sad experien- 
ces and observations in its small and seemingly 
insignificant beginnings, and in its incalculable 
consequences that tend utterly to destroy all 
the good of after education." 

Next he points out the way to avoid the sad 
consequences which he so laments. "And here 
it is easy to avoid the wrong and to find the 
right. Always let the food be simply for 
nourishment — never more^ never less. Never 
should the food be taken for its own sake, but 
£01 the sake of promoting bodily and mental 



The Training of ihe Senses. 47 

activity. Still less should the peculiarities of 
food, its taste or delicacy, ever become an ob- 
ject in themselves, but only a means to make it 
good, pure, wholesome nourishment; else in 
both cases the food destroys health. Let the 
food of the little child be as simple as the cir- 
cumstances in which the child lives can afford, 
and let it be given in proportion to his bodily 
and mental activity." 

There is no one among us who cannot recall 
pictures of young mothers putting a spoonful 
of sweet to the baby's mouth, and persuading 
that unwilling little one to take the unaccus- 
tomed food, saying with coaxing tone such 
words of encouragement as, " So good, so good," 
in this way teaching the child to dwell upon 
and value the relish side of his food. 

Not long ago I had occasion to take a long 
ride on a street car. My attention was at- 
tracted to a placid mother with her year-old 
child in her arms. The little one was in 
quiet wonder looking out on the great, new 
world about him, Avith its myriads of moving 
objects. Here was a picture of serene con- 
tentment in both mother and child. Soon the 
mother slipped her hand into her pocket and 
drew forth a small paper bag, out of which 
she took a piece of candy aiid put it into her 



48 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

moutli ; then, fearing, I suppose, that this 
might be selfish, she took out another piece 
and put it into the infant's mouth. The 
child resented the intrusion upon its medita- 
tions by ejecting the proffered sweet. The 
mother was not to be defeated in her gener- 
osity. She put it back into the child's mouth 
and held it there until the little one began 
to suck it of his own account. This oper- 
ation was repeated a number of times, about 
every third piece of candy being given to the 
child. Once or twice the small recipient 
turned its head away, but was coaxed back 
by the cooing voice of the mother saying, 
"Take it, darling; see, mamma likes candy," 
illustrating the remark by eating a piece and 
giving every sign of enjoyment during the 
operation. The child was soon won over, and 
began to reach out his hands for more. Af- 
ter the unwholesome relish had been sufficient- 
ly accumulated in the delicate little stomach 
to make the child physically uncomfortable, 
he began to show a restlessness, a desire to 
move about unnecessarily. The mother grew 
impatient, which only increased tlie child's un- 
easiness; finally she shook him, saying, " I don't 
see what in the world is the matter with you. You 
are a bad troublesome little thing!" At this, 



The Training of the Senses. 49 

the unjustly accused little victim set up a lusty 
yell, and the mother in a few minutes left the 
car in great confusion and with a very red face, 
wondering, no doubt, from which of his fath- 
er's relatives the child inherited such a dis- 
agreeable disposition. 

"But," exclaimed one mother tome, "do 
you mean to say that you would not give any 
confectionery to a child ? I think candy is the 
prerogative of all children. Why, I think it 
is a crime to take it away from them!" "I 
think," was my reply, " that a healthy body 
and a strong moral Avill-poAver are the pre- 
rogatives of each child, and it is a crime to 
take them away from him." " But," she added, 
in an annoyed tone, " I do love candy so my- 
self, and I can't eat it before my child and 
not give her a part of it ! " 

I do not mean that all sweets must be 
banished from the nursery or the table, — the 
child would thus be deprived of a lesson in 
voluntary self-control ; but they should be 
given as relishes only, after a wholesome meal, 
letting the child understand that it adds little 
or nothing to his up-building, and must, there- 
fore, be taken sparingly. 

f In " The Tasting Song," in that wonderful 
book of his for mothers, Froebel suggests that 
4 



50 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

the child's thoughts may be playfully led to the 
discrimination of different kinds of food and 
the value of the same. He says, " Who does 
not know and rejoice that you, dear mother, 
can carry on everything as a game with 
your child, and can dress up for him the 
most important things of life in charming 

play?;' 

It is not supposed that any mother will 
feel herself compelled to use the rather crude 
rhyme given in the " Mother Book," still it 
contains the needed hint of playfully guiding 
the child's attention to the after effects of dif- 
ferent kinds of food. Froebel has said: "This 
is the way in which you, mother, try to foster, 
develop and improve each sense, playfully and 
gaily, but especially the sense of taste. What 
is more important for your child than the im- 
provement of the senses, especially the improve- 
ment of the sense of taste, in its transferred 
moral meaning, as well." Farther on in the 
same earnest talk with the mother (see page 
136 "Mother Songs") he tells her that by 
such exercising of her child's senses does she 
teach him gradually to judge of the inner es- 
sence of things by their appearance ; that it is 
not necessary for any one to actually indulge 
in wrong-doing, claiming that moral as well as 



The Training of the Senses. 51 

physical things show their real nature to the 
observing eye. Thus if the child is trained to 
know the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness 
of food by its results or after effects, he will 
the more readily judge of the nature of a plea- 
sure, of a companion, of a book, of a line of 
conduct, by its after effects; and it is not, 
therefore, necessary that he " sow his wild 
oats," or " see the world," in the pitiable sense 
in which that term is used, in order that he 
may know life. His rational judgment can 
teach him what, oftentimes, sad, bitter, deform- 
ing experiences tell him, alas ! too late to avoid. 
Most of you are familiar with the old Greek 
story of Perseus, — how, when commanded by 
the king to bring the head of the slain Medusa 
to the court, the wise young Perseus took with 
him a bright and shining shield in which he 
could see reflected the image of the terrible 
Gorgon, learn what manner of creature she was, 
know her exact whereabouts, and study how best 
to destroy her, without himself coming in per- 
sonal contact with her, for well he knew fatal 
to him would be that contact. The legend tells 
us that he thereby returned triumphant to 
court, having destroyed the destroyer. This 
to me is one of the most significant of all the 
old Greek myths. 



52 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

In the motto of this "Tasting Song" Froebel 

says to the mother: 

" Ever through the senses Nature woos the child, 
Thou canst help him comprehend her lessons mild." 

In other words, Nature, God's instrument, 

is striving to educate your child spiritually. 

Yoa are another of His instruments, dull or 

sharp, according to the care you are giving to 

this physical training. 

" By the senses is the inner door unsealed, 
Where the spirit glows in light revealed." 

Froebel's convictions on this subject are defi- 
nite. That the soul, the Divine element in each 
child, is, as it were, sealed up Avhen he first 
comes into the world, and is gradually awaken- 
ed and strengthened by the impressions which 
come to him through the senses from the out- 
side world; that the physical and spiritual 
growth of the child go forward, not only simul- 
taneously, but the one by means of the other. 
He especially charges the mother to teach her 
child to observe and avoid things which are 
unripe. " Make your child notice not only the 
fixed steps of development from the unripe to 
the ripe, but above all have him realize that to 
use what is unripe is contrary to Nature in 
all relations and conditions of life, and often 
works, in its turn, injuriously on life, on phy- 



The Training of the Senses. 53 

sical but no less on intellectual and social 
life ;" and as a closing word he exclaims, " If 
you do this, you will be really, as a mother, 
one of the greatest benefactors of the human 



That the opinions and consequently the ac- 
tions of children are easily influenced through 
play, becomes evident to any one who has ever 
played much with them. One morning, while 
giving a lesson with the building blocks, we 
made an oblong form, which I asked one of the 
children to name. "It is a table — a break- 
fast table." " Let us play they are all break- 
fast tables," said I; "I will come around and 
visit each one and see what the little child- 
ren have to eat. What is on your table, 
Helen ?" " Oh ! " exclaimed she, with eager 
delight, " my children have ice-cream and 
cake and soda-water and — " " Oh, dear! oh, 
dear!" cried I, holding up my hands, " poor 
little things! just think of their having such 
a thoughtless mamma, who didn't know how 
to give them good, wholesome food for their 
breakfast! How can they ever grow big and 
strong on such stuff as that? What is on 
your table Frank?" " My children have bread 
and butter, oatmeal and cream, and baked 
potatoes," said the discreet young father. 



54 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

"Ah!" said I, in a tone of intense satisfaction, 
"now here is a sensible mamma, who knows 
how to take care of her children ! " " Oh," 
broke in little Helen, " my children's mamma 
came into the room and when she saw what 
they were eating she jerked the ice-cream off 
the table." The significant gesture which ac- 
companied the emphatic tone told of the sud- 
den revolution which had taken place in the 
child's mind as to the right kinds of food for 
carefully reared children. 

In a thousand such ways can children be in- 
fluenced to form judgments concerning lines of 
conduct which will help them to decide aright 
when the real deed is to be enacted. I know 
of the Kindergarten-trained five-year-old son 
of a millionaire, who refused spiced pickles, 
when they were passed to him at the table. 
" Why, my son," said his father, " do you not 
wish some pickles? They are very nice." "No," 
replied the boy, "I don't see any use in eating 
spiced pickles. It doesn't help to make me any 
stronger; my teacher says it doesn't." If this 
kind of training can be carried out, such a 
childhood will grow into a young manhood 
which, when tempted, can easily say, " No. I 
see no use in that. It will help to make me 
neither a stronofer nor a better man." 



The Training of the Senses. 55 

Almost any Kindergartner will tell you that 
children are easily trained to prefer wholesome 
to unwholesome food, even when all the home 
influences are against the training, I had 
charge one year of a class of children who were 
indulged in their home life in almost every re- 
spect. On one occasion an injudicious mother 
sent to the Kindergarten a very large birthday 
cake, richly ornamented with candied fruits 
and other sweets. In cutting the cake, I quite 
incidentally said: "We do not wish to upset 
any of our stomachs with these sweets, so we 
will lay them aside," suiting the action to the 
word. After each child had eaten a good sized 
slice of the cake (a privilege always allowed on 
a birthday), there was at least one-third of it 
left. Not a child out of the twenty asked for 
a second piece, nor for a bit of the confection- 
ery. This was not because they were in any 
way suppressed, or afraid to make their wishes 
known, for they felt almost absolutely free and 
were accustomed to ask for anything de- 
sired; it was simply that, through previous 
plays, talks and stories, they had learned that I 
did not approve of such things for children, so 
when with me they did not either. Thus, easily 
and imperceptibly are little children moulded. 
The mother who holds herself responsible for 



56 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

what her child shall wear, and yet does not feel 
that she is answerable for what he shall eat, 
shows that she regards his outer apjoearance 
more than his health of body or moral strength. 

The danger of wrong training lies not alone 
in the indulgence of the sense of taste. Tes- 
timony is not wanting of the evil effects of the 
cultivation of the relish side of the other senses 
also. After giving a lesson on the training of 
the senses to a class in Chicago, a stranger to 
me introduced herself as having formerly been 
a missionary to the Sandwich Islands. " This 
lesson has explained," said she, " a custom 
among the Sandwich Islanders, which I never 
before understood. When the natives begin 
their religious rites and ceremonies, which, 
you know, are very licentious, the women are 
in the habit of decking themselves with wreaths 
of orange blossoms and other flowers, which 
have a strongly agreeable scent, until the air 
is heavy with the odor." 

" Do you not know who are usually the over- 
perfumed women of our land V " asked I. " And 
yet I know scores of mothers who unconsciously 
train their children to revel in an excessive in- 
dulgence in perfumery." 

Mr. William Tomlins, a man who has almost 
regenerated the musical world for children, 



The Training of the Senses. 57 

once said, in a talk on musical education: "If 
music ends only in fitting us to enjoy it our- 
selves, it becomes selfishly enervating, and this 
reacts on the musical tone^ Therefore, he has 
long made a habit of teaching the hundreds of 
children who come under his instruction, to 
sing sweetly and to enunciate clearly, that they 
may be worthy of singing at this or that concert 
for the benefit of some grand charity. The 
dissipation which is seen in the lives of so many 
of this most ennobling profession is thus easily 
explained. Their music has been carried for- 
ward with too little thought of the pleasure it 
could give to others. 

Nor does this far-reaching thought stop with 
the right and wrong training of the senses. 
The mother who praises her child's curls or 
rosy cheeks rather than the child's actions or 
inner motives, is developing the relish side of 
character — placing beauty of appearance over 
and above beauty of conduct. The father who 
takes his boy to the circus, and, passing by the 
menagerie and acrobat's skill, teaches the boy 
to enjoy the clown and like parts of the exhibi- 
tion, is leading to the development of the relish 
side of amusement, and is training the child to 
regard excitement and recreation as necessarily 
one and the same thing. 



58 The Instinct of Investigation, or 

Fashionable parties for children, those abom- 
inations upon the face of the earth, are but sea- 
soned condiments of that most wholesome food 
for the young soul, social contact with its 
peers. That so simple, so sweet, so holy, 
and so necessary a thing as the commingling of 
little children in play and work with those of 
their own age and ability, should be twisted 
and turned into an artificial fashionable party, 
seems, to the real lover of childhood, incredi- 
ble, save for the sad fact that it is. 

Even our Sunday Schools, with their prizes 
and exhibitions and sensational programs, are 
not exempt from the crime. I have seen the holy 
Easter festival so celebrated by Sunday Schools 
that, so far as its effects upon the younger 
children were concerned, they might each one 
as well have been given a glass of intoxicating 
liquor, so upset was their digestion, so excited 
their brains, so demoralized their unused emo- 
tions. 

Need I speak of the relish side of the dress 
of children? John Ruskin, the great apostle 
of the beautiful, claims that no ornament is 
beautiful which has not a use. 

The relish, perhaps, whose demoralizing in- 
fluence is beginning to be suspected, is that of 
highly-seasoned literature,/if we may call such 



The Training of tJie Senses. 59 

writing by the name of that which stands for 
all that is best of the thoughts and experiences 
of the human race. Mothers and teachers can 
not too earnestly sift the reading matter of the 
children of whom they have charge. There 
are, aside from the text books needed in their 
school work, some few great books which have 
stood the test of time and critics. Teach your 
children to understand and to love these. Above 
all, as a means of culture, as well as a means 
of inspiration and a guide to conduct, would I 
recommend that book of books, the Bible, to 
be the constant companion of mother and 
child. 

Some may fall into the minor danger of 
teaching the child too great discrimination, un- 
til he becomes an epicure. The child who 
pushes away his oatmeal because it has milk 
instead of cream over it, is in a fair way to 
grow into the man who will push away the mass 
of humanity because they are unwashed. God 
pity him if he does ! 

I once knew of a call which came from a large 
and needy district to a young woman who seem- 
ingly longed, with all her heart, to be of use in 
the world. "But," said she to me, "I cannot 
possibly go; the salary is only seven hundred 
dollars, and that would not pay even for the ne- 



60 The Instinct of Investigation. 

cessaries of life with me." So she continues to 
live a barren, unsatisfied life. 

I knew another fine-brained,beautiful woman, 
whose insight was far beyond her times, to 
whom there came a grand opportunity to ad- 
vance a great cause. "I cannot," she said de- 
spairingly, " do without my china and cut- 
glass, the disease of luxury has fast hold upon 
me." " So train your child," says Emerson, 
"that at the age of thirty or forty, he shall not 
have to say, ' This great thing could 1 do but 
for the lack of tools.' " So train him, I would 
add, that he shall not have to say, " All my 
time and strength is spent in obtaining super- 
fluities, which have become necessities to me." 
Goethe teaches us this great lesson in his 
drama of Faust. He who studies attentively 
this marvelous poem can be saved the sad fate 
of becoming a Faust in order that he may solve 
" the Faust problem." With master strokes is 
drawn the picture, which shows that no grati- 
fication of human appetite, passion or ambition, 
brings in itself satisfaction and rest, but he 
alone who lives for others as well as for himself 
can truly say unto his life, " Ah, still delay — 
thou art so fair." 



CHAPTEE III 



THE MIND. 



THE INSTINCT OF POWER, OR THE TRAINING OF 
THE EMOTIONS. 

Old Homer, back in the past ages, shows us a 
charming picture of Nausicaa and her maidens, 
after a hard day's washing, resting themselves 
with a game of ball. Thus we see this most 
free and graceful plaything connected with that 
free and beautifully developed nation which has 
been the admiration of the world ever since. 
Plato has said, " The plays of children have the 
mightiest influence on the maintenance or non- 
maintenance of laws ;" and again, " During ear- 
liest childhood, the soul of the nursling should 
be made cheerful and kind, by keeping away 
from him sorrow and fear and pain, by sooth- 
ing him with sound of the pipe and of rhyth- 
mical movement." He still further advised 
that the children should be brought to the 
temples, and allowed to play under the super- 
vision of nurses, presumably trained for that 
purpose. Here we see plainly foreshadowed 
the Kindergarten, whose foundation is " educa- 
tion by play"; as the study of the Kindergar- 

6i 



62 Tlie Instinct of Power, or 

ten system leads to the earnest, tliouglitful 
consideration of the office of play, and the 
exact value which the plaything or toy has in 
the development of the child ; when this is 
once understood, the choice of what toys to give 
to children is easily made. 

In the world of nature, we find the blossom 
comes before the fruit; in history, art arose 
long before science was possible ; in the human 
race, the emotions are developed sooner than 
the reason. With the individual child it is the 
same; the childish heart opens spontaneously 
in play, the barriers are down, and the loving 
mother or the wise teacher can find entrance 
into the inner court as in no other way. The 
child's sympathies can be attracted towards an 
object, person, or line of conduct, much earlier 
than his reason can grasp any one of them. 
His emotional nature can and does receive im- 
pressions long before his intellectual nature is 
ready for them ; in other words, he can love be- 
fore he can understand. 

One of the mistakes of our age is, that we 
begin by educating our children's intellects 
rather than their emotions. We leave these all- 
powerful factors, which give to life its coloring 
oE light or darkness, to the oftentimes insuffi- 
cient training of the ordinary family life — in- 



The Training of the Emotions. 63 

sufficient, owing to its thousand interruptions 
and preoccupations. The results are, that many 
children grow up cold, hard, matter-of-fact, 
with little of poetry, sympathy, or ideality to 
enrich their lives, — mere Gradgrinds in God's 
world of beauty. We starve the healthful emo- 
tions of children in order that we may overfeed 
their intellects. Is not this doing them a 
great wrong? When the sneering tone is 
heard, and the question "Will it pay?" is the 
all-important one, do we not see the result of 
such training? Possibly the unwise training 
of the emotional nature may give it undue pre- 
ponderance, producing morbid sentimentalists, 
who think that the New Testament would be 
greatly improved if the account of Christ driv- 
ing the money-changers from the temple, or 
His denunciation of the Pharisees, could be 
omitted. Such people feed every able-bodied 
tramp brought by chance to their doors, and 
yet make no effort to lighten the burden of 
the poor sewing-women of our great cities, 
who are working at almost starvation prices. 
This is a minor danger, however. The educa- 
tion of the heart must advance along with that 
of the head, if well-balanced character is to be 
developed. 

Pedagogy tells us that " the science of educa- 



64 The Instinct of Foiver, or 

Hon is the science of interesting; " and yet, but 
few pedagogues have realized the importance 
of educating the interest of the child. In other 
words, little or no value has been attached to 
the likes and dislikes of children; but in real- 
ity they are very important. 

A child can be given any quantity of infor- 
mation, he can be made to get his lessons, he 
can even be crowded through a series of exam- 
inations, but that is not educating him. Unless 
his interest in the subject has been awakened, 
the process has been a failure. Once get him 
thoroughly interested and he can educate himself 
along that line, at least. 

Hence the value of toys ; they are not only 
promoters of play, but they appeal to the 
sympathies and give exercise to the emo- 
tions; in this way a hold is gotten upon the 
child, by interesting him before more intel- 
lectual training can make much impression. 
The two great obstacles to the exercise of the 
right emotions are fear and piiy j these do 
not come into the toy-world, hence we can see 
how toys, according to their own tendencies, 
help in the healthful education of the child's 
emotions, through his emotions the education 
of his thoughts, through his thoughts the edu- 
cation of his will, and hence his character. 



The Training of the EmoUons. 65 

One can readily see how this is so. By means 
of their dolls, wagons, drums, or other toys, 
children's thoughts are turned in certain direc- 
tions. They play that they are mothers and fath- 
ers, or shop-keepers, or soldiers, as the case may 
be. Through their dramatic jjlay, they become 
interested more and more in those phases of life 
which they have imitated, and that which they 
watch and imitate they become like. 

The toy-shops of any great city are, to him 
who can read the signs of the times, prophecies 
of the future of that city. They not only pre- 
dict the future career of a people, but they tell 
us of national tendencies. Seguin, in his report 
on the Educational exhibit at Vienna a few 
years ago, said: "The nations which had the 
most toys had, too, more individuality, ideal- 
ity, and heroism." And again: "The nations 
which have been made famous by their artists, 
artisans, and idealists, supplied their infants 
Avith toys." It needs but a moment's thought 
to recognize the truth of this statement. Child- 
ren who have toys exercise their own imagina- 
tion, put into action their oivn ideals — Ah me, 
how much that means ! What ideals have been 
strangled in the breasts of most of us be- 
cause others did not think as we did ! With the 
toy, an outline only is drawn ; the child must 



66 The lyisUnd of Poice)% or 

fill in the details. On the other hand, in story 
books the details are given. Both kinds of 
training are needed; individual development, 
and participation in the development of others — 
of the world, of the past, of the All. With this 
thought of the influence of toys upon the life 
of nations, a visit to any large toy-shop becomes 
an interesting and curious study. The follow- 
ing is the testimony, unconsciously given, by 
the shelves and counters in one of the large 
importing establishments which gather together 
and send out the playthings of the world. 
The French toys include nearly all the pewter 
soldiers, all guns and swords; surely, such 
would be the toys of the nation which pro- 
duced a Napoleon. All Punch and Judy 
shows are of French manufacture; almost all 
miniature theatres: all doll tea-sets which 
have wine glasses and finger bowls attached. 
The French dolls mirror the fashionable world, 
with all its finery and unneeded luxury, and 
hand it down to the little child. No wonder 
Frances Willard made a protest against dolls, 
if she had in mind the French doll. 

" You see," said the guileless saleswoman, as 
she handed me first one and then another of 
these dolls, thinking doubtless that she had a 
slow purchaser whom she had to assist in 



Tlie Training of the Emotions. 67 

making a selection, "you can dress one of 
these dolls as a lady, or as a little girl, just as 
you like." And, sure enough, the very baby 
dolls had upon their faces the smile of the 
society flirt, or the deep passionate look of 
the woman who had seen the world. I beheld 
the French Salons of the eighteenth century 
still lingering in the nineteenth century dolls. 
All their toys are dainty, artistic, exquisitely 
put together, but lack strength and power of 
endurance, are low or shallow in aim, and are 
oftentimes inappropriate in the extreme. For 
instance, I was shown a Noah's Ark with a rose- 
window of stained glass in one end of it. Do 
we not see the same thing in French literature ? 
Eacine's Orestes, bowing and complimenting 
his Iphigenia, is the same French adornment of 
the strong, simple, Greek story that the pretty 
window was of the Hebrew Ark. 

The German toys take another tone. They 
are heavier, stronger, and not so artistic, and 
largely represent the home and the more prim- 
itive forms of trade-life. From Germany we 
get all our ready-made doll-houses, with their 
olean tile floors and clumsy porcelain stoves, 
their parlors with round iron center-tables, and 
stiff, ugly chairs with the inevitable lace tidies. 
Here and there in these miniature houses we 



68 The Instinct of Power, or 

see a tiny pot of artificial flowers. All such 
playthings tend to draw the child's thoughts 
to the home-life. Next come the countless 
number of toy butcher shops, bakers, black- 
smiths, and other representations of the small, 
thrifty, healthful trade-life which one sees all 
over Germany. Nor is the child's love attract- 
ed toward the home and the shops alone. 
Almost all of the better class of toy horses and 
carts are of German manufacture. The " woolly 
sheep," so dear to childish heart, is of the same 
origin. Thus a love for simple, wholesome 
out-of-door activities is instilled. 

And then the German dolls ! One would 
know from the dolls alone that Germany was 
the land of Froebel and the birthplace of the 
Kindergarten, that it w^as the country where 
even the beer-gardens are softened and refined 
by the family presence. All the regulation 
ornaments for Christmas trees come from this 
nation, bringing with them memories of Luther; 
of his breaking away from the celibacy en- 
joined by the church ; of his entering into the 
joyous family life, and trying to bring with him 
into the home life all that was sacred in the 
church — Christmas festivals along with the 
rest. Very few firearms come from this nation, 
but among them I saw some strong cast-iron 



The Training of the Emotions. 69 

cannons from Berlin ; they looked as if Bismarck 
himself might have ordered their manufacture. 

The Swiss toys are largely the bluntly carved 
wooden cattle, sheep and goats, with equally 
blunt shepherds and shepherdesses, reminding 
one forcibly of the dull faces of those much- 
enduring beasts of burden called Swiss peas- 
ants. I once saw a Swiss girl who had sold to 
an American woman, for a few francs, three 
handkerchiefs, the embroidering of which had 
occupied the evenings of her entire winter; 
there was no look of discontent or disgust as 
the American tossed them into her trunk with 
a lot of other trinkets, utterly oblivious of the 
amount of human life which had been patiently 
worked into them. What kind of toys could 
come from a people among whom such scenes 
are accepted as a matter of course? 

The English rag doll is peculiarly national 
in its placidity of countenance. The British 
people stand pre-eminent in the matter of story 
books for children, but, so far as I have been 
able to observe, are somewhat lacking in origin- 
ality as to toys ; possibly this is due to the 
out-of-door life encouraged among them. 

When I asked to see the American toys, my 
guide turned, and with a sweep of her hand 
said: " These trunks are American. All doll- 



70 The Instinct of Power, or 

trunks are manufactured in this country.'* 
Surely our Emerson was right when he said 
that "the tape- worm of travel was in every 
American." Here we see the beginning of the 
restless, migratory spirit of our people; even 
these children's toys suggest, " How nice it 
would be to pack up and go somewhere ! " All 
tool-chests are of domestic origin. Seemingly, 
all the inventions of the Yankee mind are re- 
produced in miniature form to stimulate the 
young genius of our country. 

The Japanese and Chinese toys are a curious 
study, telling of national traits as clearly as do 
their laws or their religion. They are endur- 
able, made to last unchanged a long time ; no 
flimsy tinsel is used which can be admired for 
the hour, then cast aside. If " the hand of 
Confucius reaches down through twenty-four 
centuries of time still governing his people," 
so, too, can the carved ivory or inlaid wooden 
toy be used without injury or change by 
at least one or two successive generations of 
children. 

Let us turn to the study of the development 
of the race as a whole, that we may the better 
grasp this thought. The toy not only directs 
the emotional activity of the child, but also 
forms a bridge between the great realities of 



The Training of the Emotions. 71 

life and his small capacities. To man was 
given the dominion over the earth, but it was 
a potential dominion. He had to conquer the 
beasts of the field ; to develop the resources of 
the earth; by his own effort, to subordinate all 
things else unto himself. We see the faint 
foreshadowing, or presentiment, of this in the 
myths and legends of the race. The famous 
wooden horse of Troy, accounts of which have 
come down to us in a dozen different channels 
of literature and history, seems to have been 
the forerunner of the nineteenth century bomb, 
which defies walls and leaps into the enemy's 
camp, scattering death and destruction in every 
direction. At least, the two have the same ef- 
fect; they speedily put an end to physical re- 
sistance, and bring about consultation and 
settlement by arbitration. The labors of Her- 
cules tell the same story in another form — man's 
power to make nature perform the labors ap- 
pointed to him ; the winged sandals of Hermes, 
Perseus' cloak of invisibility, the armor of 
Achilles, and a hundred other charming myths, 
all tell us of man s sense of his sovereignty 
over nature. The old Oriental stories of the 
enchanted carpet tell us that the sultan and his 
court had but to step upon it, ere it rose majes- 
tically and sailed unimpeded through the air. 



72 The Instinct of Power, or 

and landed its precious freight at the desired 
destination. Is not this the dim feeling in the 
breasts of the childish race that man ought to 
have power to transcend space, and by his intel- 
ligence contrive to convey himself from place 
to place? Are not our luxurious palace cars 
almost fulfilling these early dreams? What 
are the fairy tales of the Teutonic people, which 
Grimm has so laboriously collected for us? 
They have lived through centuries of time, 
because they have told of genii and giant, gov- 
erned by the will of puny man and made to do 
his bidding. Eagerly the race has read them, 
pleased to see symbolically pictured forth man's 
power over elements stronger than himself. In 
fact, the study of the race development is 
much like the study of those huge, almost- 
obliterated outlines upon the walls of Egypt- 
ian temples — dim, vague, fragmentary, yet giv- 
ing us glimpses of insight and flashes of light, 
which aid much in the understanding of the 
meaning of to-day. We find the instincts of 
the race renewed in each new-born infant. 
Each individual child desires to master his 
surroundings. He cannot yet drive a real 
horse and wagon, but his very soul delights 
in the three-inch horse and the gaily painted 
wagon attached; he cannot tame real tigers 



The Training of the Emotions. 73 

and lions, but his eyes dance with pleasure as 
he places and replaces the animals of his toy 
menagerie; he cannot at present run engines 
or direct railways, but he can control for a 
whole half-honr the movement of his minia- 
ture train; he is not yet ready for real father- 
hood, but he can pet and play with, and rock 
to sleep, and tenderly guard the doll baby. 

Dr. Seguin also calls attention to the fact 
that a handsomely dressed lady will be passed 
by unnoticed by a child, whereas her counter- 
part in a foot-long doll will call forth his most 
rapt attention ; the one is too much for the 
small brain, the other is just enough. 

The boy who has a toy gun marches and drills 
and camps and fights many a battle before the 
real battle comes. The little girl who has a 
toy stove plays at building a fire and putting 
on a kettle long before these real responsibil- 
ities come to her. 

A young mother, whose daughter had been 
for some time in a Kindergarten, came to me 
and said, "I have been surprised to see how 
my little Katherine handles the baby, and how 
sweetly and gently she talks to him." I 
said to the daughter, " Katherine, where did 
you learn how to talk to baby, and to take care 
of one so nicely? " " Why, that's the way we 



74 The Instinct of Power. 

talk to the dolly at Kindergarten!" she replied. 
Her powers of baby-loving had been developed 
definitely by the toy-baby, so that when the 
real baby came, she was ready to transfer her 
tenderness to the larger sphere. Thus, as I 
said before, toys form a bridge between the 
great realities and possibilities of life, and the 
small capacities of the child. If wisely select- 
ed, they lead him on from conquering yet to 
conquer. Thus he enters ever widening and 
increasing fields of activity, until he stands as 
God intended he should stand, the master of all 
the elements and forces about him, until he can 
bid the solid earth, " Bring forth thy treasures ;" 
until he can say unto the great ocean, " Thus 
far shalt thou go and no farther;" until he 
can call unto the quick lightning, "Speak thou 
my words across a continent;" until he can 
command the fierce fire, "Do thou my bid- 
ding;" and earth, and air, and fire, and water, 
become the servants of the divine intelligence 
which is within him. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

THE INSTINCT OF LOVE, OR THE TRAINING OF 
THE AFFECTIONS. 

With the first dawning smile upon the in- ( 
f ant's face the instinct of love awakes.; Until 
the last sacrifice of life itself for the loved ob- 
ject — aye, on up to that sublime exaltation 
which can say even though He slay me, yet 
will I trust Him, love is the great motive 
power which enriches and ennobles life. Can 
we, therefore, too carefully watch and train its 
first growth ? In every stage of man's devel- 
opment, unselfish love plays a part j' it is the 
basis of all contentment within one's own soul ; 
of all happiness in the family life; of all 
friendship in the social world; of all patriot- 
ism in state affairs; of all philosophic under- 
standing of the world-order; of all religious 
contemplation of God. Yet this instinct, so 
manifest in each infant as it holds out its 
loving arms to its father, or hides its face upon 
its mother's shoulder from the gaze of a stran- 
ger, does not always serve the purpose for 
which it has been assuredly given. Loving 
warm-hearted little children grow into cold, 
75 



76 The InsUnd of Love, or 

selfish men and women, and many a parent 
who has given his all to his children has to 
exclaim with Lear, " How sharper than a ser- 
pent's tooth it is to have a thankless child! " 
Selfishness is the most universal of all sins, 
and the most hateful. Dante has placed Luci- 
fer, the embodiment of selfishness, down below 
all other sinners in the dark pit of the Inferno, 
frozen in a sea of ice. Well did the poet know 
that this sin lay at the root of all others. 
Think, if you can, of one crime or vice which 
has not its origin in selfishness. Why is this? 
To one who has thoughtfully and carefully 
studied the subject, the cause of the wide- 
spread prevalance of selfishness is not hidden. 
It lies largely in the mother's non-apprehension 
of the right treatment of her child's earliest 
manifestations of love. As the instinctive ac- 
tivity of the child can descend into destruc- 
tion or ascend into creativity ; as the undisci- 
plined or disciplined exercise of the senses can 
degenerate into unbridled gratification of the 
passions, or can grow into moral control of all 
the life ; as the spontaneous, imitative play of 
the child can fill his mind with weak and 
vicious examples to be copied, or inspire his 
life with high and noble ideals to be followed; 
as the inborn desire for recognition can devel- 



The Training of the Affections. 77 

op into bragging vanity, or expand into rever- 
ent endeavor, — so too has the instinct of love 
its two-fold tendency. There is a physical 
love which expresses itself in the mere kiss, and 
hug, and word of endearment. This is not the 
all-purifying, all-glorious love, so elevating to 
every life; it is but the door, or entrance, to 
that other higher form of love which manifests 
itself in service and self-sacrifice. 

The love which instinctively comes from a 
child to its mother is usually shown in the 
caressing touch of the baby hands, the tre- 
mendous hug of the little arms, the coaxing 
kiss of the rosy lips, and is to the fond mother 
an inexpressible delight. Nor need she rob 
herself of one such moment; while her child 
is in the loving mood, let her ask of him some 
little service, very slight at first, but enough 
to make him put forth an effort to aid her. 
Thus can she transform the mere selfish love 
of the child into the beginning of that spirit- 
ual love which Christ commended when he 
said, " If ye love me, keep my commandments." 
Let her remember that against the mere pro- 
testations of attachment, He also uttered those 
stern words of warning, " Not every one that 
saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
the kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the 



78 The Instinct of Love, or 

will of my Father which is in Heaven." The 
parent stands, for the time being, to his child 
as the one supreme source to whom he looks for 
all things ; the center of all his tiny affections. 
The relationship established between parent 
and child is apt to become, in time, the rela- 
tionship between the soul and its God. The 
thought is a solemn one, but a true one. 

The earthly affections are the ladders by 
which the heart climbs to universal love. 
^^ Love is to he tested alivays by its effect upon 
the iciliy The grace of God can turn the 
weak, selfish will from thoughts of self to 
thoughts of others, but it cannot make a life 
all that the life would have been, had that will 
from the beginning been made strong and un- 
selfish by repeated acts of loving self-sacrifice, 
even in human relationship. Contrast for 
yourself the selfish, all-absorbing love of a 
Romeo and a Juliet who could not live if the 
physical presence of the loved one were taken 
away, with that grandly beautiful love of Hec- 
tor for Andromache, who, out of the very love 
he bore her, could place her at one side and 
answer the stern call of duty, that she might 
never in her future memory of him have cause 
for painful blush. It has been one of the 
great privileges of my life to have had en- 



The Training of the Affections. 79 

trance to an almost ideal home, where husband 

and wife were filled with the most exalted 

love I have ever known. In time the husband 

was called hence. The wife said: "All that 

was beautiful or attractive in my life went out 

with my husband, and yet I know that I must, 

for the very love I bear him, remain and rear 

our child as he would have him reared." As I 

listened to these words, quietly uttered by the 

courageous wife, I realized what love, real love, 

could help the poor human heart to endure. 

Froebel, believing so earnestly that it was 

only by repeated training in many small acts 

of self-sacrifice that the child attained unto 

the right kind of love, would have the mother 

begin with her babe in her arms, to play that 

its wee fingers were weaving themselves into a 

basket which was to be filled with imaginary 

flowers to be presented to papa as a token of 

baby's love. The motto intended for the 

mother, in the little "Flower Basket" song, 

says : 

"Seek to shape outwardly 
Whatever moves the heart of the child, 
Because even the child's love can decay 
If not nourished carefully." 

A statement of the same truth in general 
terms would be that the inward must always 



80 The Instinct of Love, a?- 

find expression in tlie outward if it would have 
a healthful completeness. Especially is this 
true of any tender emotion or sentiment, which, 
unused, soon degenerates into mere sentiment- 
ality, becoming satisfied with itself as a de- 
lightful sensation, or, worse still, shrivels up 
into skepticism or cynical doubt as to the real- 
ity of any genuine emotion. 

Froebel would show the mother what a 
mighty instrument in her hands such childish 
play can become, " and," says Madam Mareu- 
holtz von Bulow, " none but those who do not 
understand and observe the nature and character 
of children, who have forgotten their own child- 
hood, will consider it a piece of far-fetched 
absurdity thus to interpret the earliest games 
of children as the starting-point of the life of 
the Soul, and the beginning of mental develop- 
ment." The mother's effort is in no wise to stop 
with the playful service of her child but by 
such plays she can incline him toward the 
desired line of conduct. She is to bear ever in 
mind the words of the beloved disciple, " He 
that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
how can he love God whom he hath not seen? " 
That there might be no mistake as to the kind 
of brotherly love here referred to, the aged 
saint had already explained, " whoso hath this 



The Training of the Affections. 81 

world's good, and seeth his brother have need, 
and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from 
him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" 
^/With the realization of the necessity of early 
and constant training that the great end may 
be attained, the mother is to exercise, in the 
little immortal, this divine kind of love, through 
his every-day contact wrt;h herself and his 
father, his brothers and sisters, in order that his 
effortless love may develop into the kind which 
can not die. Of all the essentials of true 
character-building, there is perhaps none more 
important than this, that the child should learn, 
through love, to give up his ownAvill to others; 
for the sake of others should learn from the 
very beginning of life to submit to things which 
are unpleasant to him. It would not be dij6&- 
cult to make children obey, if this thought had 
been carried out from the beginning, before 
egotism, self-will and selfishness had gotten 
fast hold upon the young heart. " Again," 
says Madam Marenholtz, " all work, all ex- 
ercises which awaken the active powers, which 
form the capacity for rendering loving service 
to fellow creatures, will help to lay the ground- 
work of religion in the child. The awakening 
of love goes before that of faith; he who does 
not love can not believe. Loving self -surrender 
6 



82 TJte Instinct of Love, or 

to what is liigher than ourselves, to the Highest 
of All, is the beginning of faith. But love 
must show itself in deeds, and this will be im- 
possible unless there is a capacity for doing. 
A child can no more be educated to a life of 
religion and faith without the exercise of 
personal activity than heroic deeds can be ac- 
complished with words only." 

Never should the mother, through that foolish 
desire to keep her child as long as possible 
dependent upon her, or that worse pride which 
would show itself to be self-sufficient, refuse 
the proffered help of her child. If she is doing 
something in which, from the nature of the 
thing, he can not share, let her be careful to 
substitute some other loving service while de- 
clining the one proffered, remembering that 
love, turned away, nourishes selfishness ; and 
proffered help refused, begets idleness. She 
may have to say, " No, dear, you can not help 
dress the baby ; " she can add, " you may hand 
mamma the clothes." I know of one household 
in which it is as much the self-imposed duty 
of the child of three to patiently hold the towel 
and soap, until needed, as it is the mother's 
part to bathe the year-old brother. In another 
household in which the six-year old child had 
lono^ been tauo^ht that true love showed itself 



The Training of the AffecUons. 83 

in service rather than protestations, the mother 
was one day compelled by a severe headache 
to shut herself up in a darkened room. Her 
boy soon opened the door and asked her some 
question. " Mamma can not talk to you to- 
day, Philip, she has a headache. Go out and 
shut the door." The door was quietly closed, 
and in a few moments a mysterious bumping 
and rolling about of the furniture was heard 
in the next room. All was still for a short 
time. Then softly and gently the door was 
again opened, and little Philip stepped on tip- 
toe to his mother's bedside. "Mamma," said 
he, "I've straightened the furniture in the 
sitting-room all up so nicely, and fixed your 
work basket; isn't your headache better?" 
The loving little heart had prompted this 
difficult service in order that the love called 
forth by her suffering might find vent. 

All birthdays, Christmas celebrations, and 
other festivals, can be made occasions for the 
uniting of the whole family in glad and loving 
service for the honored one, who in his turn 
may serve to an extra extent the others, because 
the honors of the day have been conferred upon 
him. In most of our Kindergartens, the child 
who is selected as leader for each day has also 
the office of distributing the work, gathering 



84 The Instinct of Love, or 

up the luncheon baskets, and otherwise waiting 
on the rest, that he may thereby gain the im- 
pression that honors mid responsibilities go 
hand in hand, and begin to realize the meaning 
of the significant words, " He that is greatest 
among you shall be your servant." Mothers 
have scarcely realized the value of the family 
festival rightly kept, the opportunity it gives 
them for exercising the loving little hearts in 
unselfish love, more especially if they and the 
fathers enter into the childish secrets and 
mystery of preparation. Perhaps papa can 
come home half an hour earlier because it is 
Mildred's or Bradford's birthday, and mamma 
and Mildred and Bradford can plan some little 
surprise for papa before he gets there; it mat- 
ters not how trifling, provided each has made 
an effort to complete it. 

If, at the magic words, "Finish it for mam- 
ma and let it show her how much you love 
her," mothers could see the look of almost 
angelic delight upon the little faces when 
the discouraged hands have picked up the 
tangled sewing card, or have undone the wrongly 
woven mat, they would not so often rob them- 
selves of this pleasure. This appeal to the 
spiritual love can, as I have already said, be 
made a means of the noblest form of govern- 



The Training of the Affections. 85 

ment, that of voluntary, loving obedience. The 
childish heart responds quickly to such an ap- 
peal, as it does to all things noble and generous 
and beautiful. At one time I had in my 
Kindergarten a delicate, nervous child, who 
occupied the chair next to me in order that I 
might the more carefully guard him. One day 
he chanced to be absent, and a rosy little Scotch 
lad asked if he might not take the place. I 
consented. Next morning, little Jean, the 
frailer child, was again with us ; but my sturdy 
young Scotchman was in the chair, and with 
the persistence of his race, refused to give it 
up, even holding on to my dress in his deter- 
mined way. "Oscar," said I, "why do you 
want to sit next to me?" "Cause I love you 
so much," was his honest and emphatic reply. 
"Why," said I, in a tone of assumed surprise, 
"isn't your love strong enough to stretch 
across the table?" "Yes, it is," he answered, 
and at once left the contested seat and resumed 
his usual place at some distance from me. 
Each time during the morning that our eyes 
met, his shone with the light of this higher 
love ; he had made what, to him, was a sacri- 
fice, to prove his devotion, and the added hap- 
piness was his also. 

Children usually delight to be told that' 



86 The Instinct of Love, or 

their hands and feet and bodies can tell their 
love as well as their tongues. A little girl 
came tome one morning saying, "My hands 
loved you yesterday." "Did they ?" I said. 
" Tell me about it." " Our baby tore my mat, 
and I was just going to slap her, but I thought 
of you, and I didn't." This explanation was 
given withoat the slightest thought of com- 
mendation for the self-control exercised, and 
was passed over by me as a thing of course in 
one of my children who really loved me. 
There is a story often told by kindergartners 
when they wish to establish this higher stand- 
ard of love with a new set of children. It is 
of the Franciscan monks, who, in order that 
they might show their love for the Heavenly 
Father, left their homes and all the pleasant 
things about them, and spent their time in 
finding w*anderers who had lost their way in 
the mountain's snow-storms, and in taking 
care of the sick, and in helping the poor, and 
in teaching the ignorant. From the very 
begining they established a rule that the older 
monks should serve the younger and those 
who were strong should wait on the weak, I 
have never heard this story tenderly and 
attractively told, that it did not have an im- 
mediate effect upon the conduct of the older 



The Training of the Affections. 87 

children. One day, on perceiving signs of 
selfishness among my children, I told it to 
them, making no comment or application. 
When I had finished, it was luncheon time. 
As the napkins were being given out, one 
rollicksome, usually thoughtless little fellow 
exclaimed, " Oh, I do wish I could have that 
pretty red and blue napkin to give to Bobby! " 
" You can have it," said I. He took the napkin 
and spread it out before his little cousin, who 
was smaller than he. "I think," said a still 
younger child, " thafs the prettiest napkin in 
the whole lot." "He can have it, can't he?" 
asked little David. " You know he's so little." 
Thus quickly had the spirit of the Franciscan 
love taken possession of their young hearts. 
There lies an almost untold wealth of resource 
in the legends of the Eoman Catholic saints, 
nearly all of whom were canonized for their 
deeds of self-sacrifice and service to humanity. 
The Protestant church has robbed herself of 
much, in shutting away from her children 
these stories of pure sweet lives, unto most of 
whom it could have been said, " Well done, 
thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into 
the joy of thy Lord." 

The " love-force," as another has called it, 
is woman's greatest instrument of power. 



88 The Instinct of Love, or 

Unmarred cliildren implicitly believe that 
their mother's love makes everything easy. 
I have in my memory gallery a beautiful 
picture illustrating this perfect trust of the 
little child in the efficacy of his mother's love. 
Two little cousins of about three years of age 
are playing together on a green lawn, suggest- 
ing to the beholder white kittens in their free 
frolicsome gambols. One suddenly catches 
his foot in some unseen obstacle in his path 
and falls forward, striking his head against the 
trunk of a tree. Instantly, of course, there 
ensue loud cries of pain. The other little fel- 
low is in a moment by his side, with his arm 
around him, and pushes him with all his might 
towards his own mother, saying as he does so, 
in the most assuring, coaxing tones possible, 
" Run to my mamma, Dean, run to my mamma, 
she'll kiss it and make it all well. Please run 
to her, quick! " Surely perfect love in this case 
has cast out all fear. Love engenders love. 
Can not this great God-gift of joyful self-sac- 
rifice to the mother devise a thousand ways by 
which to kindle the same fire in her child, until 
the Robert Falconers of fiction are no longer 
beautiful dreams but living realities ? " Ah," 
says the doubter, " what if I ask my child to 
do something for me, and he refuse, or begin 



The Training of the Affections, 89 

to make excuses, or ask why his brother or 
sister can not do it as Avell? " You have simply 
mistaken the time for stretching the young 
soul's wings. Begin the training when the 
child is in the loving mood, and you will 
rarely fail to get the desired response. Yet, 
if need be, command the performance of the 
deed, that by repeated doing, the selfish heart 
may learn the joy of unselfishness, and thus 
enter upon True living. 

"Let us strive to follow the ideal which our 
Lord Himself has given to us, in all its ful- 
ness in all its grand proportions. Let us aim 
at nothing short of a life which will embrace 
in it all the glory of the heavens, as well as 
the gladness of the earth ; which will put 
'Thou,' 'Thine,' 'Thee,' in the first place, 
' We,' ' Ours,' ' Us,' in the second, while ' I,' 
' Mine,' ' Me,' from beginning to end pass out 
of sight, lost in God in the first, merged in 
man in the second! " 



CHAPTEE Y. 

THE INSTINCT OF CONTINUITY, OE THE TRATNINff 
OF THE REASON. 

What is it that gives the attraction to such 
rhymes as, " This is the house that Jack 
built ?" Is it not that each step in this nursery 
tragedy is seen clearly to proceed out of the- 
previous one and to develop into the succeeding 
one ? What is it which makes the child ask at 
the end of a story, "What became of the little 
dog ?" or, "What did the mamma say then?" 
Does not the question plainly show the child's 
dislike of endings, or isolaiions 9 Why do all 
children listen with delight to stories of when 
they were babies, or, better still, of when 
mamma was a little girl, or papa was a little 
boy? Is it not that this gives to them the 
continuity of their little lives, or that of the 
parent's larger life ? Have not the magic words 
" Once upon a time," "A long time ago," the 
same fascination for the very reason that they 
show him a connection with the remote past ? 
How a boy's face lights up when one begins to 
talk with him about what he is going to do when 
he gets to be a man ! The thought links him 
90 



The Training of the Reason. 91 

with the mysterious future. What is the 
attraction which the steady, never-stopping 
pendulum of the clock has for the child ? It 
marks the continuity of time. Have you never 
soothed the restless fretting of a baby by call- 
ing his attention to running water or falling 
sand? This is the continuity of motion. 
" The earliest cradles of the race were rocked 
in rhyme to sleep," sings the poet. It is the 
measured accentuation of sound in melody that 
has such charm for the child; all simple 
rhythmical measurement of music is a delight 
to him. Without doubt this is the secret 
charm in "Mother Goose" which has held 
enthralled generations of little listeners. So 
keen is the child's enjoyment of continuity in 
sound that he will take delight in running a 
stick along a picket fence, forming a kind of 
Chinese music in which his young soul rejoices, 
though older and more tired nerves may quiver 
thereat. 

I remember once amusing myself and a 
small boy by drawing a picture of a wagon for 
him on a fragment of paper. He was interested 
and for a short time satisfied with it; then he 
returned with the request that a horse be 
drawn in front of the wagon. The scrap of 
paper did not admit of the drawing of a horse 



92 The Instinct of Continuity, or 

in proper proportion to the wagon, so I care- 
lessly drew the two hind legs and rear part of 
the animal, and handed it back to him with 
the remark,. " We can't see the other part of 
your horse; this will do." He looked at it for 
a moment, then a great wave of disappointment 
swept over his face and his lips quivered; in a 
moment more he burst into tears. I was 
astonished, and in the thoughtless impulse of 
the moment, said, "If you are going to be a 
naughty boy and cry I will not play with you." 
This was before my kindergarten days. I 
know now that the fragmentary picture gave a 
sense of incompleteness to the sensitive little 
brain, which was akin to the dissatisfaction and 
unrest which come to us oftentimes when days 
seem dark and dreary, and we cannot see the 
continuity of the good steadfastly shining 
beyond the temporary cloud of interrupted 
plans or disappointed hopes. All these and 
scores of like incidents are but indications of 
the child's instinctive desire to get a better 
comprehension of process or continuity. ^ 

Let us pause and think what is the true 
significance of a realization of continuity. It 
is one of the central truths of life; a compre- 
hension of it is the mark of the philosophic 
mind, of having attained unto that rationality 



The Training of the Reason. 93 

which brings insight. In fact, we have not 
reached a really rational view of anything 
until we see that all things are connected, thai 
there is no such thing as isolation. It has 
been well said, "Most of the Avorld is asleep 
because it has been taught facts alone." It 
has learned to see results without studying the 
cause of these results ; begin to show the living 
moving process by which these results have 
been obtained, and you begin to arouse the 
sleeping world. The three-fold testimony of 
nature, of history, and of revelation are not 
wanting here. 

Is it not the upheaval in primeval ages that 
has formed our mountain ranges, which in their 
turn determine the water courses? By these 
pre-determined water courses which wash down 
and grind up the fragments of rock, is not the 
nature and productivity of the soil more or less 
determined ? Upon the richness or sterility of 
the soil and the direction of the rain-bearing 
winds, does not the nature of the vegetation 
depend ? Even the climate, that other great 
factor in the physical world, depends somewhat 
upon those primeval walls of rock. The insect 
and animal life which any locality can sustain, 
is closely connected with the vegetation and 
climate ; man's occupation or industrial activity 



94 The Insiind of Continidiy, or 

shapes itself according to the structure of the 
surrounding country and the forms of vegeta- 
ble and animal life about it; the influence of 
those occupations is clearly seen upon the 
mental bias of a nation, until at last the very 
government of a people can be traced back to 
the geography of the country. In a thousand 
and one ways nature illustrates this great 
law of continuity. The mist arises from the 
ocean, ascends to the clouds, is floated across 
the continent by the wind, comes in contact 
with the cold mountain peak which changes it 
into the form of rain, descends into rivulet and 
stream, and is emptied by them back into the 
ocean. The trees grow centuries old and die; 
their majestic forms crumble into loam which 
serves to enrich the soil from which a new 
growth of trees draws nourishment. Even the 
blood in the body is in a continual process, 
from heart through artery and vein back to 
heart again. Our very gestures repeated 
become attitudes, attitudes crystallize into 
bearing, and bearing helps to mould character; 
for may not one's bearing be an open gate 
which invites all mankind to come in and sup 
with us, or on the other hand may it not be the 
iron portcullis which shuts out with like harsh- 
ness the glorious knight who brings a message 



The Training of the Beason. 95 

from the king, or the trembling peasant who 
flees to us for help? Does not this joyous 
warmth and uniting sympathy on the one hand, 
and isolating unconcern of manner on the 
other hand, have much to do in their reaction 
with the formation of character? 

We are all familiar with the principle in 
natural philosophy known as " the indestruct- 
ibility of matter." We know that the accurate 
chemist can burn a piece of wood, and present 
us in smoke, gas and ashes every atom's weight 
of the wood ; we know that in the processes of 
nature the elements of the earth change rela- 
tionship but none are ever really lost. We 
see and acknowledge all this in nature, but we 
fail to realize it in human affairs. It is because 
we fail to see continuity that we fail to compre- 
hend life. God is eternal, everlasting, ever 
present ; therefore all His creation must reflect 
Him — must he without isolations. 

In our modern civilization is every element 
of good for which Persian or Greek or Roman 
ever fought. The student of history with this 
thought of continuity in his mind, sees Provi- 
dence bringing order out of chaos; sees the 
why and the wherefore of the terrible struggles 
through which the race has had to pass. The 
•enormous sacrifice which any generation may 



96 The Instinct of Continiutij, or 

be called upon to make becomes a trifle when 
the result of that slaughter and sacrifice is seen 
in the next generation. What was the battle 
of Marathon, compared to the fact that upon 
that battle-field the world gained the first 
dawn of the gigantic truth that all men are 
free? What was the struggle of the Dutch 
during their terrible thirty years war, compared 
with the benefit which mankind has since 
received from the firm establishment of the 
fact that each soul shall be free to worship 
God according to the dictates of his own con- 
science? What were the sufferings of our 
Puritan forefathers, compared to the protection 
which a free government affords us, their 
descendants, a protection bought by the very 
courage and fortitude which their hard lot 
engendered ? Continuity is the brightest lamp 
of thought ; by its light we see in Caesar's 
grasp of the Eoman Empire the beginning of 
modern civilization ; in the Crusades, we find 
the necessary preparation of the then narrowly 
prejudiced nations for the future settlement of 
America ; by those fanatical wars were broken 
down the fear of unknown countries, the small 
provincial ideas of greatness, and the spirit of 
adventure was aroused. So, too, the true stu- 
dent of history traces back the French Eevo- 



The Training of the Beason. 97 

lution far beyond the weak, vain rule of the 
Louis to the desperate, profligate days of the 
Popes, Julius II. and Leo X., which caused 
the mighty soul of Michel xlngelo to pour 
itself out in pictures more terrible and sub- 
lime than any of which art had ever dreamed. 
Then began the loosening of the hold of the 
Roman Catholic Church upon the hearts of her 
children, which finally resulted in the loss of 
respect and reverence for everything that was 
high or holy, for all forms of authority, in the 
days of Murat and Robespierre. 

In the affairs of to-day as well as in those of 
past times we see this great law of continuity 
explaining and making clear the vexing prob- 
lems of the hour. By its magic touch, as by 
the enchanted cloak of old, things assume their 
right degree of importance. As for example, 
in the rapid growth and advancement of the 
railroads of our times can be plainly foreseen 
the downfall of European aristocracy; by 
means of these the arable lands of our great 
Northwest, our prairie lands, are becoming the 
granaries of the world, are helping to send 
food to the heretofore dependent vassals of the 
old world, whose bread had come to them only 
by the consent of the lords of the land. 

Great as is the insight that continuity gives 



98 The Instinct of Continuiiy^ or 

to the student of science or of history, greater 
still is its aid to the student of morals. I once 
had a man of the world tell me that for the life 
of him he could not with any comfort go out 
fishing or upon any pleasure expedition on 
Sunday, because during his childhood his 
mother had so constantly and conscientiously 
put aside all secular occupations on that day. 
"Train up a child in the way he should go," 
says the Bible, the best book on pedagogics 
ever written, " and when he is old he will not 
depart from it;" when seeming departure from 
the standards acquired in early childhood 
comes, it can almost always be traced to incon- 
sistencies in the training. So, too, apparently 
sudden defalcations usually bring to Ught a 
train of previous actions which show to the 
observing eyes that the rottenness had been of 
long though hidden growth. 

Froebel considered this such an important 
part of education, that he would have the 
mother begin to point it out to her cliild in such 
trifling matters as that of showing him in song 
or play that the bread and milk which have 
disappeared after his supper is over are yet 
existing in the form of fresh blood in him, 
serving to make his cheeks " red and white like 



The Training of the Reason, 99 

rose and cream." In the motto to the mother 
in this little song of "All's Gone," he says: 

"The child, disturbed, thinks all is gone, 
When the empty plate and cup life sees; 
Thou canst a wiser thought make known 
And easily his fancy please. 
Since what has vanished from us here 
Exists yet in another sphere. 
What from the outer form is flown, 
Will in another form be known." 

The child sees only the empty bowl ; — ending, 
loss, disconnection, isolation, hence discord. 
The mother knows that the bread and milk are 
changed into the higher form of blood and 
muscle ; instead of ending, she sees continua- 
tion; instead of loss, gain; instead of discord, 
perfect harmony. 

Do we, when we look at the more complex 
problem of life, see with the eyes of the child 
or the mother ? Do we see that all things work 
together for good? It is into such a grand 
view of life that the little child can be led as 
naturally and as healthfully as into the realiza- 
tion that he breathes or that he has brothers 
and sisters. In fact, that only is the right 
education which makes all learn ino: serve as an 
instrument with which to train the child to see 
in an effect the cause ; in other words, to become 
a rational being, to whom the great truths of 



100 The Instinct of Continuity, or 

life liave been shown. The question is, how 
shall we deal with the child so that he shall 
first feel this connection, then know it, then 
live it ? It is with this logical training in 
view, that the Kindergarten schools of sewing, 
weaving, and the like, are so arranged that 
one design grows out of another, though of 
course due attention is paid to the free, spon- 
taneous growth of the child's own ideas. " See 
into what other pretty form you can change this 
one," says the teacher, or by some like remark 
suggesting orderly transformation rather than 
disconnected rearrangement, yet giving full 
scope to the child's individuality. The chairs, 
beds, tables, etc., built of the blocks, tablets, 
and sticks, are usually developed one from 
another, much to the delight of the children, 
thus giving an almost imperceptible tendency 
to see transformation rather than mere change. 
That this is the effect of logical play and work 
in any child who has gone through a thorough 
kindergarten, will be conceded by any observer. 
In the kindergarten of a friend of mine a 
play with the blocks was going on, in which 
one form was thus changed into another by 
each move of the blocks. After several such 
changes had been made at the suggestion of 
the teacher, one little fellow looked up with the 



The Training of the Reason. 101 

most astonished and delighted expression of 
face, and exclaimed: " Well, I declare! It's 
just too funny to see how one thing busts 
into another without breaking up." Madam 
Marenholtz von Bulow, the valued friend and 
interpreter of Froebel, in speaking of this logi- 
cal play, says: " He (the child in the kinder- 
garten) is instructed in an easy manner how to 
invent new forms at pleasure in endless variety 
by application of Froebel's law of formation. 
The forms and figures thus brought out, easily 
proceed step by step to the most complex, only 
appearing difficult and beyond the child's power 
when we do not know how they proceeded from 
each other. And again : " The child before 
whose eyes sensible objects are brought in the 
correct order of the parts to the whole, and in 
the logical connection of things, will, when 
reflected power is developed, also perceive this 
order and logical connection clearly and defin- 
itely in the intellectual world." 

In our legendary stories of heroes, we usually 
begin to tell of them when they were little 
boys, letting the children see the gradual 
growth in character.; My own children are 
never tired of listening to such stories as that 
of the little girl who wanted to make some 
bread all by herself, so she was referred by 



102 The Instinct of Continuity, or 

mamma to the cook, by the cook to the grocer 
for flour, b}^ the grocer to the miller, by the 
miller to the farmer for Avheat, by the farmer 
to the ground, by the earth to the sunshine 
and showers, and by these to the Heavenly 
Father, who is back of all. and in all. This 
little story embodies much of the real signifi- 
cance and the comprehension of continuity. 
It reveals the dependence of the individual 
upon the rest of mankind, and also man's 
dependence upon nature, and leads up to a 
realization of the dependence of all upon the 
Creator, which is the grand central truth of 
religion. 

The earnest mother can give a like logical 
training in the home. Your child has bumped 
his head ; let him see that it Avas not the fault of 
the table but of himself, because he did not 
know where he was going; thus by learning 
the cause, he learns to avoid further bumps. 
He comes to you complaining of the stomach- 
ache; sympathize with him, if need be, but ask 
at the same time, "What has my child been eat- 
ing which has made his stomach ache ? " One 
little fellow who had been trained, not only to 
trace back physical aches, but irritated moods, 
to disordered stomachs, was with me at a hotel 
for a few days. He was much pleased by the 



The Training of the Beason. 103 

new experience of riding np and down in the 
elevator. One day he surprised me by saying, 
" I guess that elevator man has got all over his 
stomach-ache." "What!" I exclaimed. He 
gravely repeated his remark, and then added by 
way of explanation, " He was awful cross yes- 
terday, and told me to keep out of the elevator, 
and to-day he offered to sharpen my pencil for 
me, and asked me to come and ride with him." 
Ah me, if dear old Carlyle could only have had 
that insight and have taken care of his diet 
while he was exposing and trying to correct the 
shams of society! 

Two little girls in my kindergarten were 
once telling of a quarrel they had had the 
afternoon before with a playmate. One said: 
" When I got home, I told my mamma, and she 
said she wouldn't play with little girls who 
quarreled so, if she were in my place." Then 
turning to her companion she added, by way of 
confirmation of the justice of the decision, " So 
did your mamma, didn't she, Josephine?" 
" No," answered Josephine, in a low tone and 
coloring slightly. "My mamma said if I had 
been pleasant and unselfish we need not have 
quarreled." The first mother merely defended 
her child, laying the blame of the common 
fault elsewhere. The second mother carefully 



104 The Insfincf of Confinuiiy, or 

pointed out to her cliiid the cause oE the quar- 
rel, not of that quarrel only but of all quarrels. 
One of the great benefits of logical training is 
that each new glimpse into cause and effect 
applies to all after like experiences. 

We will have to give a separate chapter to 
logical punisliDients, so misunderstood is the 
subject, so beneficial the right line of conduct 
in the matter. The loving mother whose 
instinct has once been aroused into insight, 
will find innumerable Avajs by which to teach 
her child to see connection of one thing with 
another, and the child's desire for such connect- 
ed views of things will suggest many more. 
In the family life, the loving anticipation of 
how pleased papa will be when some little piece 
of work is done, the planning beforehand for 
some excursion to the country, or the celebra- 
tion of some birthday, leads the child to trace 
out the origin of unselfish happiness, and is 
worth ten-fold the joy which is obtained from 
impulse alone. Not that the spontaneous joy 
of a child is ever to be checked, only it can be 
made reasonable, and the child gradually 
learns to subordinate the gratification of the 
moment to a better though more distant enjoy- 
ment; a lesson much needed by the majority of 
mankind. In the spending of money, some 



The Training of the Eeason. 105 

object can be placed before the child which 
will have sufficient attraction for him to induce 
him to save his pennies until enough are 
acquired to purchase the desired article, rather 
than that habit, thoughtlessly engendered in 
most American homes, of expecting a child to 
spend each cent, bestowed or earned, as soon as 
he gets it. It is this wretched spend- 
thrift propensity which shackles half the world, 
and makes men slaves to their circumstances 
rather than masters over them. 

Even in the selection of reading matter for ' "z^ 
children, this development of the power to 
reason can be furthered. Such books as "Seven 
Little Sisters" lead the young mind to see the 
unity of the race, and such books as "Ten Little 
Boys on the Road from Long Ago until Now" 
lead him to trace in history the connection of 
the civilization of the world. 

In science work with the children a connec- 
tion can be made between the animal kingdom 
and the mineral kingdom, by following the 
study of mollusks with that of shell rock, or 
other fossiliferous rock; the mineral kingdom 
can be connected with the vegetable kingdom 
through mixing the clay and sand with the 
vegetable loam, as together they form the food 
of the plant-world which gives to man and the 



106 The Instinct of Continuity, or 

lower animals nourislimeiit. It is helpful to 
call the child's attention to such facts as these, 
that birds which live upon the smaller inhabi- 
tants of the water are so constructed that they 
can wade or swim ; that almost all weak crea- 
tures have the power of fleeing rapidly, and the 
added protection of having the color of their 
usual environment, thus showing design, hence 
connection in creation. All sympathy with the 
varying phases of the weather aids the child. 
The good rain is giving the flowers and grasses 
a drink, although it is keeping us indoors ; the 
hot sun is making the corn grow and the fruits 
ripen, although it is uncomfortable for us ; the 
soft snow and even the sharp frost are covering 
up the roots of trees and plants, and putting 
them to sleep for a new growth in the spring. 
Almost any child, no matter how willful, can be 
trained into logical rationality, if little by little, 
in a bright, cheery way, he is taught to look 
before and after; 

In a visit to a friend not long ago, I had full 
opportunity to demonstrate how quickly a child 
responds to reason if the reason is simply 
enough put. Her little son, a beautiful boy 
of five, refused to eat any meat for breakfast. 
" Please eat a little, Harvey," said the mother. 
" No," responded the child. " Please do, for 



The Training of the Reason. 107 

mamma's sake." " No, I don't want any," 
almost petulantly replied the child. The mother 
looked baffled and distressed. " Harvey," said 
I, "do you know Avhat the little stomach does 
when it gets hold of some nice meat?" "No," 
said the child, interested. " Your little stom- 
ach, you know," continued I, " has to change 
the food you send down to it into blood and 
bone and muscle, so when it gets sugar and 
cookies and things that taste nice to you 
but do not help it to make strength, it twists 
and turns them, and does the best it can with 
them, but it cannot make very good blood with 
them. But when you send it good strong meat, 
it goes to work and grinds it up and makes it 
into fine, rich blood, which is sent out into 
your arms and legs and makes strong muscles, 
so that you can climb trees and run fast and do 
all sorts of things without getting tired." I 
talked in an animated fashion as if these things 
were the most desirable attainments in all life, 
Harvey gradually drew his plate toward him 
and began a vigorous attack upon the rejected 
meat. 

/ The tracing of faults in your children back 
to the causes of them, helps much in rooting 
them out. Everyone recognizes evil when it 
culminates in some forbidden deed, but the 



108 The Instinct of Continuity, or 

wise mother perceives that the act is but the 
result of a chain of previous evils. Let a child 
steal and jou are horrified, but you do not per- 
ceive that this is only a climax; it began with 
secretiveness, then followed meddling with 
what belonged to another, then perhaps the 
covetous thought or the lack of some sort of 
ownership, finally ending in thievery — at any 
stage it could have been checked more easily 
than at the last. Too many mothers and 
teachers fail in the training of children because 
they do not recognize the law of continuity. I 
use the two words mother and teacher almost 
as if they were synonymous. They are as far 
as the training of the little child is concerned ? 
The true mother is a teacher whether she is 
conscious of it or not, and the true teacher uses 
the innate mother element, that which broods 
over the child and warms it into life as much 
as she does her acquired knowledge. The full 
realization of the value of the first years of a 
child comes only when we perceive the con- 
tinuity of character building. Not alone is the 
little child affected by having the connection of 
things shown to him, but unthinking adults, 
those children of a larger growth, too, feel 
the effects. 

The young man just starting upon his busi- 



The Training of the Eeason. 109 

ness career sees the man of business who has 
accumulated capital and influence, and he is 
stirred with de.-^^ire, or _^perchance wi^ih envy, 
and wishes in a vague way^ lk>i'lie could be as 
" lucky." Show him the process by which the 
man made his fortune ; if it be honestly won, 
how he denied himself luxuries in his early 
career, how he was prompt in meeting every 
engagement, reliable in every transaction, 
polite, courteous, and good-natured, though 
firm and unhesitating, and if you make the 
young aspirant after fortune see this you 
arouse him to do likewise, and earning a 
fortune becomes a real possible thing, not a 
gift of fate. Or if the fortune has not been 
accumulated by the legitimate process of 
business, but by wild and reckless speculation, 
the curse of our Nation, show him the inevit- 
able process ; that as the bank account unjustly 
swells, so surely does the conscience and 
honor of the man shrink, until at last money 
has taken the place of manhood, and the 
younger man's desire for the ill-gotten gains 
changes into commiseration of the poor deluded 
soul which has robbed itself far more than it 
has robbed the world. 

Or again, the young student, who discovers 
what books the philosopher has read or 



1 .^.0 The Instinct of Continuity, or 

woul'^ recommend for reading, feels that he has 
obtairted possession of a ladder by which he 
too ma;«f. climb to the dizzy height of scholar- 
ship attained;'^ i^ becomes a stimulus to his 
flagging energies. It is this realization of 
inevitable process in all success that does away 
^ with that fatal paralysis of effort, a belief in 

t good or bad luck, with which many a young 

man satisfies his conscience or smothers his 
aspirations. Let him from childhood be led 
to realize that there is no luck about it, but that 
each man makes or mars his own fortune, and 
if there remains a spark of the ideal in him it 
kindles into flame. Many of the questionings 
of the human heart as to the justice of Divine 
dealings can be satisfied by the light of this 
law. 

" I sent my Soul through the invisible, 
Some letters of the after-life to spell ; 
And by and by my Soul returned to me, 
And answered, ' I myself am Heaven or Hell '." 

Hell thus becomes •' God's highest tribute to 
man's freedom." 

In a thousand ways we can test the import- 

^ ance or non-importance of any line of progress. 

/ Out of what has it grown? Into what is it 

leading?' All events in time are links in a 

chain. The human race is one continued 



The Training of the Reason. Ill 

whole, each child is the heir of generations 
unnumbered. " Hereditary rank," says Wash- 
ington Irving, " may be a snare and a delusion, 
but hereditary virtue is a patent of innate 
nobility which far outshines the blazonry of 
heraldry." In each of our own lives is to be 
seen at work this great law. "We are to-day 
what we are because our past has been what it 
was; what we will be in the future depends 
upon what we now are." Nor is this all. We 
are now, by our voluntary choosing of this or 
that line of conduct, forming character and 
creating spiritual tendencies which shall be 
transmitted to our descendants; thus we are 
linked not alone with the p^^t, but with the 
future. Is not this thought an inspiring one 
to every mother? By every weakness which 
she helps her child to overcome, by every 
inspiration which she fans intg^ame, is she 
upbuilding not only her child's character, but 
is benefiting all after generations. What 
confidence it gives her, too, as to her child's 
future. He must go out into the world and 
fight his battles alone ; but she can arm him 
with the armor of good habits, place upon his 
head the helmet of rational self-determination, 
put into his hand the sword of aspiration, and 
above all, give to him the shield of faith and 



112 The Instinct of Continuity. 

reverence, so that he goes forth ready to defy 
the demons of appetite within and the devils 
of temptation without. She need not fear to 
send her son forth, or tremble for her 
daughter's happiness — they have begun aright 
and the law of continuity will keep them aright, 
unless some mighty force hurl them for a 
moment from the path of rectitude, and even 
then the reaction will SAving them back into 
the accustomed path. 

Is more evidence needed to impress upon the 
mother's heart the importance of training her 
child to feel and see continuity in all things 
around him — in all he does? 



CHAPTEE VI. 

THE INSTINCT OF JUSTICE, OR EIGHT AND 
WRONG PUNISHMENTS. 

One morning last year, I went over to one of 
our kindergartens located in a sad part of the 
city, only a few blocks away from the residence 
portion where wealth and culture abound. It 
was composed of the neglected children of the 
dissipated and rather dissolute poor. We had 
recently put a young girl in charge of them, 
and I was anxious to see how she was getting 
on. To the practiced eye of a trained kinder- 
gartner, the handwork of each child tells his 
mental and moral condition. The children at 
the table where the young director was seated 
were at work on second gift beads, stringing 
cubes and balls by twos. All seemed to be inter- 
ested and busy at their little task except one 
child, whose string showed no system, definite- 
ness, or harmony ; orange, green, purple, yellow, 
balls, cubes, and cylinders, were strung at ran- 
dom. The jarring inharmony in color and the 
disorder in form showed the discord within. 
On the cheeks of the young director were two 
bright spots of color, though she appeared 
8 113 



114 The Instinct of Justice, or 

calm and quiet. When the work-time had 
ended, she asked the chiklren if they would not 
like to have their beads hung up to help make 
the room pretty for the other children. String 
after string was taken up, and the delighted 
little workers watched her wind them around 
the gas-fixtures. At length she came to the 
disordered string before mentioned. " Ah," 
said she quietly, " I am sorry Nellie's string 
is not nice enough to hang up. She will have 
to wait until she can learn to string her beads 
in some pretty fashion before we can hang them 
up for her." Instantly the child threw the 
string of beads petulantly upon the table, and 
the look of sullen defiance deepened in her face. 
The young teacher walked to the piano and 
struck the chords which were a signal for all 
to rise from their seats. All arose but Nellie. 
The second chord called them into position, 
and to the measured time of the music they 
marched forward and formed in a line upon the 
play-circle. The kindergartner then went over 
to the children, saying as she passed the chair 
of the obstinate Nellie, "Are you not coming 
to join with us in the Good-bye song? " " No," 
exclaimed the child passionately, " I shan't 
come. If you break every bone in my body, I 
won't stir from this spot," and the look of 



Right and Wrong Punishments. 115 

sullenness deepened into an almost fiendish ex- 
pression. The color increased in the face of 
the young kindergartner, but her voice was as 
clear and as smooth as ever as she replied, " I 
do not intend to hurt you, Nellie. When you 
feel like doing what is right, you may come 
and tell me." Then the Good-bye song was 
sung and the good-bye shake of the hand was 
given to each child, and all were dismissed to 
their homes. Not another word was said, but 
the young teacher sat down at a table and began 
straightening out the mats and piling up the 
work, preparatory to putting it away. Her face 
was calm and serene, and save for the telltale 
color of the cheeks one could detect no excite- 
ment or annoyance on her part. The tick of 
the clock was the only sound heard in the 
room. In a few moments the child gave an 
uneasy jerk of her chair. " Are you ready, 
Nellie?" asked the teacher, without looking 
up. " No," answered the child emphatically. 
The girl went on with her work. After a time — 
I think not more than ten minutes — the child, 
feeling the isolation of her condition, and 
seeing that she would gain nothing by continued 
obstinacy, arose hesitatingly from her chair and 
sidled, in a half-indignant, half -sullen sort of a 
way, up to the kindergartner. Although the 



116 The Insiind of Jusiice, or 

child's dress was greasy and torn, the young 
girl put her arm around her and drew her 
close to her, saying gently, " Well, Nellie, are 
we going to be friends ? " Nellie seemed ready 
to burst into tears, and put her hand tremb- 
lingly upon the teacher's shoulder. Nothing 
was said in the way of reproof. After a minute 
the kindergartner said in a cheerful tone, " Do 
you think we can start all new to-morrow morn- 
ing-, Nellie ? " and the child nodded her assent. 
I have told this story simply to show what 
self-control can be obtained in such trying 
moments, through the insight which comes 
from a knowledge of the irue office of punish- 
ment. To the misapprehension of the aim of 
punishment is due much of the misgovernment 
of children. Until a man has become a law 
unto himself, he is of no great value to the rest 
of the world ; an^punishments, righily consid- 
ered, are not merely an atonement for offences 
committed, but they shoiv the nature of the 
offence, and help the individual to build up the 
law within and thereby to avoid repeating the 
misdeed. The child must be led from the 
unconscious to the conscious choosing of such 
lines of conduct as he is to pursue. How can 
he thus choose unless he knows these lines of 
conduct definitely, and thus can voluntarily 



Right and Wrong Punishments. 117 

decide which he will adopt ? The deed is best 
known through its consequences. " By their 
fruits ye shall know them," says the Bible. 
Therefore we rob our children of one of the 
greatest aids to self-government and self-con- 
trol, when by any means whatsoever we free 
them from the consequences of their own wrong- 
doing. That the child should early learn that 
" the way of the transgressor is hard," is an 
important part of his education. Could the 
souls just entering upon a career of dissipation, 
dissoluteness, or other form of vice, clearly see 
the end from the beginning, surely most of 
them would be deterred from pursuing the path 
of sin. But the fatal thought, " Somehow Fll 
escape," blinds many who have not learned the 
great law of continuity, who do not realize that 
" he who sows the wind must reap the whirl- 
wind." As the germ of the plant can be seen 
in the tiny seed, as the germ of the future man 
is found in the little child, so too can the germ 
of the inevitable consequences be perceived in 
the deed. Thus we recognize the value of 
training the child by means of retributive pun- 
ishment rather than by the arbitrary punish- 
ment too often used with children. The former 
appeals to the child's inborn instinct of justice. 
If he is led to feel that the inconvenience, dis- 



118 The Instinct of Justice, or 

comfort, pain, or disgrace, is merely the natural 
consequence of his deed, as a rule he accepts it 
without rebellion or a revengeful thought. It 
is in this way that Nature teaches her laws to 
each child. The little one puts his hand upon 
the hot stove; no whirlwind from without 
rushes in and pushes the hand away from the 
stove, then with loud and vengeful blasts scolds 
him for his heedlessness or wrong doing. He 
simply is burned — the natural consequence of 
his own deed; and the fire quietly glows on, 
regardless of the pain which he is suffering. If 
again he transgresses the law, again he is burned 
as quietly as before, with no expostulation, 
threat, or warning. He quickly learns the lesson 
and avoids the fire thereafter, bearing no grudge 
against it. This is always Nature's method; 
the deed brings its own result, and nowhere is 
arbitrary unconnected punishment inflicted. 

In history, we find this same law most effect- 
ually at work. The nations which violate the 
laws of progress and growth, and of interna- 
tional kindliness of feeling, suffer the conse- 
quences in the reaction upon themselves. 
Herodotus shows us that the Persian empire 
conquered and tried to crush the barbarians 
by whom it was surrounded, but in the end it 
was crushed by these same brutally-treated. 



Right and Wrong Punishments. 119 

provinces. The Greeks colonized and civilized 
their border-lands, and in turn learned many- 
useful things from them. The downfall of 
every great empire can be traced to its viola- 
tion of the laws of justice and right in its 
dealings with surrounding nations. And that 
great law by which the deed returns upon the 
doer's head is thus written upon walls of 
adamant by the hand of time. We see how 
effectual retributive punishment, or rather 
retributive justice, works in the civic world. 
The business man who peremptorily discharges 
a clerk upon the first offence of drunkenness, 
has sober employees about him. The most 
successful business men will tell you that they 
do not dally with inefficiency. If an employee 
can do his work satisfactorily, he is kept ; if he 
does it poorly, he is dismissed. Do we not see 
this same law in operation in society ? Let an 
individual fail in the courtesies of society, and 
he is dropped by well-bred people, as the inevi- 
table consequence of being boorish, rude, and 
discourteous. From sacred lips came the 
words, " With what measure ye mete, it shall be 
measured to you again." Can not the mother 
learn a great and needed lesson from all these 
sources? Can she not, in a thousand and one 
ways, serenely and calmly teach her child this 



120 Tlie Instinct of Justice, or 

great lesson of life/^that no sin or lorong-doing 
can be commitfed that does not bring its own 
punishment f The more she lets the deed do 
its own punishing, the more impersonal her 
o^Ti part in the affair, the sooner does the 
child learn the lesson. 

Let me illustrate again. One morning we 
had a box of sticks upon the table. A restless, 
nervous little girl sat near it, and in a moment 
or two put her hand into the box; as it was 
near the edge of the table, I cautioned her 
concerning it. Soon the little hand went in 
again ; the box tilted, slipped, and fell upon the 
floor, while the sticks were scattered in a 
hundred different directions. The child looked 
up in a startled manner. "What a time our 
little girl will have picking her sticks up! " I 
said, in a matter-of-course tone; "but I think 
you can get through in time for the play circle. 
Alvin, please move your chair so that she can 
get the sticks which are under it." In a 
moment the child Avas on her knees, rapidly 
picking up the scattered sticks without a word 
of objection or a murmur. Had I censured her, 
or imposed some arbitrary punishment upon 
her, I should in all probability have created a 
spirit of rebellion, and have alienated her from 
me, as she was a capricious and somewhat self- 



Eight and Wrong Punishments. 121 

willed child. As it was, she had upset the box, 
and as a consequence she must pick up the 
sticks. I have rarely ever failed in leading a 
child to see the justice of such commands. In 
fact, in a short time they usually take upon 
themselves the rectifying of the mistake or 
misdeed as they best can. 

A little five-year-old boy one morning asked 
the privilege of going into the next room and 
refilling the water pitcher for us. It was 
granted, as we always accept proffered services 
when possible. Upon his return to the kinder- 
garten I noticed some very suspicious looking 
drops upon the mouth of the pitcher. "John, 
did you spill the water?" I asked. "Just a 
little bit," was the reply. " Get the sponge," 
said I, " and wipe it up quickly. We must 
not ask anyone else to wipe up the water we 
spill." In a few minutes he returned to the 
room, and coming up to me with a some- 
what troubled face, said in a puzzled manner, 
as pondering the matter, "I guess those big 
girls haven't got any sense." "Why?" I 
asked. " ' Cause they laughed when they saw 
me wiping up the water I had spilled, so I 
guess they haven't got any sense, or they 
wouldn't laugh at a thing of that sort, would 
they ? " His sense of justice had so acquiesced 



122 The Instinct of Justice, or 

in the command that it seemed irrational to 
him that anyone should be amused by the deed. 
The mother, more than the teacher, has 
opportunities to quietly let the deed impress 
its nature upon the child's mind. Little child- 
ren are naturally logical and quickly perceive 
justice or injustice. The child who is rightly 
treated will accept this right kind of punish- 
ment as a matter of course. A friend of mine 
who had been given this idea of punishment, 
upon returning home one day found that her 
six-year-old boy had taken his younger brother 
over to the wagon-shop across the street, a for- 
bidden spot, and they had smeared their aprons 
with the wagon-grease. In telling the story 
afterwards, she said, "My first impulse was to 
whip the boy, because he knew better than to 
go ; but I thought I would try the other way of 
punishing him, and see if it would do any 
good. So I said, ' Why, that's too bad. It will 
be rather hard for you to get the grease off, 
but I think I can help you, if you will get 
some turpentine. Eun to the drug store on the 
corner and buy a small bottle of it.' " On his 
return she took the two aprons and spread 
them upon the lloor of the back porch, then, 
giving him a little sponge and the bottle of 
turpentine, she showed him how to begin his 



Right and Wrong Punishments. 123 

cleaning. In a few minutes lie said, " Oh, 
mamma, this stuff smells horrid! " " Yes," she 
serenely replied, " I know it does; I dislike the 
smell of turpentine very much, but I think you 
will get through soon." So Willie kept on 
scrubbing until he had cleaned the aprons as 
well as he could. " Well," said his mother, as 
she helped him put away the cleaning material, 
"I think my boy will be more careful about 
going to the wagon shop, will he not?" " You 
het I will! " was his emphatic reply. 

A young mother who was filled with the 
spirit of the kindergarten, and had wisely 
guided her own children by the insight obtained 
from her kindergarten study, was called upon 
one summer to take charge of a little niece for 
a few weeks. The first morning after her 
arrival at her sister's home, she heard some 
angry words in the child's bedroom. On open- 
ing the door to inquire what was the matter, 
the nurse said, " Oh, it is just the usual fuss 
Miss Anna makes each morning over having 
to be dressed. I am sometimes an hour at it." 
Further inquiry showed that various means — 
such as bribing, coaxing, and threatening — had 
been used; but all to no avail. Even the last 
device used — that of depriving her of marma- 
lade, her favorite dish, at each breakfast at 



124 The Instinct of Justice, or 

which she was late — had proved ineffectual. 
The next morning the aunt went into the room 
and said quietly, " Anna, you can have Mary 
for twenty minutes to dress you ; after that 
time I shall need her down-stairs." The child 
looked at her for a moment in astonishment 
then went on with her play. In vain poor Mary 
coaxed and urged. The twenty minutes 
elapsed ; the child was but half dressed. True 
to her word, the aunt sent for Mary to come 
down-stairs. " But, Auntie," called the child, 
^' I am not dressed yet." " Is that so?" said 
the aunt. "I am sorry; jump back into bed 
and wait until Mary comes again." In 
about fifteen minutes the child called out 
petulantly, " Auntie, I want to get dressed, I 
tell you. Send Mary up to me." " I cannot 
yet," replied the aunt from below ; " she is busy 
just now. Get into bed again, and she will 
come as soon as she can." Breakfast was sent 
up to the child by another servant. At the end 
of an hour Mary came back, and it is needless 
to say that little Miss Anna was quickly 
dressed. The next morning the aunt again 
gave the warning that Mary would be needed 
down-stairs in just twenty minutes. This time 
the warning took effect, and when Mary was 
called the child was ready. The following 



Right and Wrong Punishments. 125 

morning, the force of habit was too strong, and 
again came the capricious delay. Again Mary 
was called, and again the child was detained in 
her room for an hour. Two or three such 
experiences, however, were sufficient to break up 
entirely her habit of dallying. So quickly 
comes the lesson taught by retributive punish- 
ment. Many illustrations of the effectiveness of 
this method might be given, but surely are not 
needed by the thinking mind. 

Another great advantage gained is, that 
retributive punishment is never inflicted in 
anger. Dante very graphically pictures angry 
souls as in a muddy, miry place, with a slow, 
foul mist about them, which hinders them from 
seeing clearly. If we turn to the nations of the 
world, we see upon a large scale the effects of 
the two ways of dealing with offenders. Among 
the Chinese it is customary, when any official 
has committed an offence against the law, to 
have him taken to the public square and 
whipped. What are the consequences of such 
treatment? Lack of self-respect, of self- 
reliance, and of self-government. In Great 
Britain and America, where the laws in general 
are but the instruments for meting: out to each 
man the after-effects of his own deed, we see 
the growth of manliness, of self-government, 



126 The Instinct of Justice, or 

and of self-respect. Of course the question 
will arise, " But what are we to do when the 
logical punishment or consequence of a child's 
deed will bring physical disaster? " In such 
cases the moral disajDproval of a mother should 
be made strong and emphatic; if she has kept 
her child in close sympathy with her, this will 
be sufficient. On the other hand, scolding, 
shaking, whipping, shutting up in dark closets, 
and various other methods of arbitrary punish- 
ment, which have no possible connection in the 
child's mind with the deed, are apt to rouse in 
Cr- him a sense of injustice, and a feeling that the 
parent has taken advantage of her greater 
physical strength. By such treatment is also 
violated one of the finest instincts of the child, 
which is that of expecting justice, absolute 
justice, from his parent. His sense of freedom 
of conduct is injured, and, as I have said 
before, he is robbed of one of the greatest 
lessons of life, namely, thai each violation of 
law, physical, mental, or moral, must he paid for. 
/Learn to distinguish between mere overflow of 
animal spirits and intentional wrong-doing ; for 
instance, do not punish your children for such 
offences as having torn the finery with which 
you have injudiciously clothed them, nor for 



Bight and Wrong Punishments. 127 

tlie accidents which may arise during a good- 
natured romp. 

Of course too great temptations to commit a 
wrong deed must be avoided. There once 
came to me a mother with a face full of 
suppressed suffering. "What shall I do?" 
said she. " I have discovered that my boy 
steals money from his father's purse and from 
mine." " Give him a purse of his own," I 
answered, " and give him ways of earning 
money of his own ; let a respect on your part be 
shown for his possessions, and thereby generate 
a respect on his part for your possessions. The 
superintendent of a reform school once told me 
that two-thirds of the boys who came to him 
were sent on account of having stolen, and that 
he always gave them, as soon as possible, a 
plat of ground which should be their own, and 
allowed them to raise their own vegetables, 
small fruit, or poultry, for the nearest market, 
in order that he might develop in them a sense 
of ownership, the lack of which he firmly 
believed was the cause of their transgressions." 
The mother left me somewhat comforted. A 
week or two after, she returned and said, " I 
have done as you advised, and the plan worked 
admirably; but this morning I went to the top 
drawer in my bureau to get my purse, and dis- 



128 The Instinct of Justice, or 

covered that he had again been taking money 
from it." Here was an instance where, by 
leaving her purse within reach, the carelessness 
of the mother had placed in her child's way a 
temptation greater than he could resist. 

Another advantage of the retributive method 
^ of punishment is that each deed is punished or 

^ rewarded upon its own plane. That is, material 

defeats or conquests bring material loss or gain, 
and spiritual defeats or conquests bring spirit- 
ual suffering or reward. Whereas, when this 
logical method of procedure is not followed, 
when a mere arbitrary punishment is substitu- 
ted, the mistake is often made of rewarding or 
punishing spiritual efforts with material loss or 
gain, thereby degrading and lowering such 
efforts in the child's eyes. Many a mother 
thoughtlessly says to her child, " Be good to 
little brother while I am gone, and I will buy 
you some candy." " Give that to little sister, 
and I will give you something better." Self- 
control must not, in this way, be connected in 
the child's mind with gratification of physical 
appetite, nor can the child learn the sweet joy 
of unselfishness through the feeding of his 
greed of possession. I once discovered that a 
little girl in a primary class had written her 
pelling lesson upon the wrong side of the hem 



Bight and Wrong Punishments. 129 

of her linen apron. Upon my afterwards show- 
ing her the dishonesty of the deed, she burst 
into tears and sobbed out, "I couldn't help it; 
I couldn't help it. Papa promised me a 
diamond ring if I wouldn't miss in my spelling 
this year." The desire to obtain the coveted 
jewel was so great that the bounds of honesty 
and integrity had been overstepped. I once 
knew a Sunday-school superintendent to say, 
" Every boy who comes early for a month shall 
have a present." Doubtless, punctuality was 
obtained, but at the price of moral degradation. 
Another illustration, an incident which hap- 
pened in the childhood of a woman, shall be 
told in her own words: " Once when I was a 
little girl," she said, "our parents had left my 
older sister and myself alone for the evening. 
Getting sleepy, we went into our mother's 
bedroom, and climbing upon the bed drew a 
shawl over us, preparatory to a nap before their 
return. In a little while my sister complained 
of feeling cold. With the loving impulse of a 
generous child, I gave her my part of the 
shawl ; with a real pleasure I spread it over 
her, and we were soon asleep. Upon the return 
of our parents, the question was asked why my 
sister had all the covering while I had none. 
Innocently enough, explanation was made in 
9 



130 The Instinct of Justice, or 

the words, ' She was colder than I, so I gave 
her my part.' ' You dear, blessed, unselfish 
little thing! ' exclaimed my father, ' here's ten 
cents for you to reward you for your unselfish- 
ness.' A few evenings after, our parents were 
again invited out, and again we children were 
left alone in our part of the house. I began at 
once planning a scheme to coax my sister to 
again go into our mother's bedroom for a nap, 
in order that I might repeat the deed which had 
earned me ten cents. I succeeded, although this 
time it was Avith some coaxing that I got her to 
accept the extra portion of the covering. For 
nearly an hour I lay waiting for the return of 
my father, in order that I might gain financial 
profit by my conduct." Thus easily and 
quickly the sweet, generous, unselfish impulse 
of a childish heart was changed by the mere 
thought of material gain into sordid, selfish 
and deceptive conduct. 

When the mother realizes the true nature of 
punishment, there is never detected in the 
tones of her voice what Emerson calls a lust of 
joower. Too often children hear beneath the 
mere word of command the undertone which 
says, "I'll show you. that I'll have my way.'''' 
The farther the child's self-government is 
advanced, the higher his ideals of right and 



Biglii and Wroncj Punishments. 131 

wrong, the more will he resent this assertion of 
your personal will-power. I£ possible, let the 
instinct of justice, which is within each child, 
feel that the command has been given because 
the thing to be done is necessary and right. 
A child readily realizes that scattered toys 
must be gathered up, that soiled clothes must 
be changed, that tardiness necessarily brings a 
loss of opportunity, that money foolishly spent 
by him will not be re-supplied by the parent, 
that teasing or tormenting the younger brother 
or sister cause a loss of the society of the mis- 
treated one, that petulance upon his part brings 
silence upon the part of the mother, that reck- 
lessness when on the street causes loss of liberty. 
When the punishments thus fall upon the plane 
of the deed in these minor offences, the child 
sooner learns to recognize the loss of respect 
which comes from lying, the dissatisfaction of 
ill-gotten gains, the weariness of hypocrisy, the 
wretchedness of jealousy, the bitterness of 
envy, the isolation of selfishness; he sooner 
learns that contentment comes only with honest 
gains, that respect follows always the upright 
man, that love springs up around the sympa- 
thetic soul, that happy participation is the 
reward of the unenvious, and that joy fills the 
unselfish heart. 



132 The Instinct of Justice, or 

I was walking one day with a young mother 
whose heart was filled with wild rebellion 
over the death of her beautiful baby. "Do 
not talk to me," she said, " of the justice or 
love of a God who could take from me such 
joy and cause me to suffer so much. I can 
not believe in such a Being." Jusfc at this 
time we came upon her little daughter, about 
five years of age, who was playing in the 
street. "My dear child," exclaimed the 
mother, " run into the house at once. You 
will catch a severe cold out here. The wind is 
very sharp, and you are not sufficiently 
wrapped." " Oh, no, mamma," exclaimed the 
little girl, " I shall not take cold. Please let 
me stay." " My dear," said her mother sternly, 
"we will not argue the question; mamma 
knows best. Go into the house at once." x4.s 
the child turned to obey the command, she 
burst into a flood of tears, and sobbed, "You 
do not love me, mamma. You do not love me, 
or you would not take my happy times away 
from me. You do not love me at all. I know 
you do not." We walked on in silence for 
some time. Suddenly my friend turned to me 
and said, "Why do you not tell me that my 
own child has answered my question?" 

"Remain thou in the unity of life thyself," 



Bigld and Wrong Punishments. 133 

says Froebel, "or else thou canst not lead thy 
child therein." We are not ready to teach our 
children the true office and nature of punish- 
ment or retribution, until we ourselves perceive / ^ 
that the sorrow and suffering which come to 
us are but angels in disguise; until we are 
ready to say with such grand souls as William 
Gannett: "Though the heart cries, ' Is there 
no icaste of suffering ? ' when Nature burns 
three hundred lives as readily as three, when 
earthquake waves drown men like flies, when 
the ignorance or sin of one man involves a 
lineage or a nation in disaster, is there nothing 
spendthrift in such tragedy? Again the mind, 
slow-thinking, answers: That seeming spend- 
thrift unconcern of Nature may be her deep 
concern, that seeming waste may be some arch- 
economy of tragedy. For see: to reach her 
end — a ' man,' an ever-growing ' man ' — as 
speedily as possible, all fragments of experience 
must be garnered up and utilized. To this end 
are we bound together in one vast brotherhood 
of acting and re-acting influences, all members 
of the race, yea, of all races, actively and pas- 
sively co-operating^nothing living, nothing 
dying, to itself. That not a pang be lost, life 
is linked to life across all time, across all space. 
Linked in time: hence those dread laws of 



134: The Instinct of Justice, or 

heritage by which the crooked back and the 
disease are transmitted to irresponsible and 
helpless sufferers. That looks like waste of 
woe. At last they teach the world the rule of 
health; and clearing blood, the bones set 
straight, the lengthening average of life, the 
greatening powers of human joy and human 
usefulness, — all these transmitted also attest the 
good intent that lurked along the ages. And 
linked in space: the tiger cholera, stealing fi'om 
the Ganges, strides with silent footfall through 
the nations, leaving death behind it, and at last 
robs homes upon the Mississippi's banks; the 
war in America starved English weavers and 
made the fields of Egypt white with cotton har- 
vests. It looks like waste, but these are the 
'vicarious atonements' of history, the great 
give-and-take by which the generations and the 
races bequeath and share experience, one suffer- 
ing from and for another, to the end that ' man ' 
may have life and have it more speedily and 
more abundantly. And there are countless 
small vicarious atonements of daily life, in 
which we all unceasingly take part — the ever- 
spread communion-table of the heart-break and 
the blood. It is tragedy. ' How long, O 
Lord ! ' we cry, as we gaze at the lasting, 
circling woe. But we can see that this com- 



Rigid and Wrong Punishments. 135 

munion hives experience the faster, aud so brings 
faster on the general good; that by the same 
laws of communion, wisdom and saintship, also, 
are garnered in ministries of joy ; that only by 
such co-operation, making the race one man, 
could life so soon have become the boon it is, 
the ever-richening boon it will be for future 
populations that will call us ancient. Not that 
we can always trace the vicarious and co-opera- 
tive suffering to its outcome in beneficence ; too 
vast and secret and complex are the connections 
in the social organism. But when, over and 
over again, evil is seen to be at last evolving 
good, assurance grows in us that good will 
always and everywhere prevail; and that the 
seeming exceptions will, when truly under- 
stood, prove subtler, vaster instances of the 
fact that the world's disorder is order-in-the- 
making." 

If by your training you can give to your 
child this exalted view of life, is it not worth 
the self-control on your part which it requires ? 



CHAPTEK VII. 

INSTINCT OF EECOGNITION, OR THE TRAINING OF 
THE WILL. 

"Must I do it?" exclaims the child, when 
he is confronted by the command of another, 
and the instinct of freedom begins to stir with- 
in him. ^^ Must I do it?" This is an im- 
portant period in each child's life, and should 
be well understood by the mother or teacher. 
How is the obedience to the everlasting and 
eternal right to be obtained, and yet, at the 
same time, the child be left to obey of his own 
accord? The problem is as old as recorded 
time, yet ever new, and demands a practical 
solution each day. In other words, by what 
process of training can the outward must be 
changed to the inward ought, and thus the child 
be developed into a free, self-determining 
being? " Unless a man has a will within 
him," says Emerson, " you can tie him to noth- 
ing." There is no wall or safeguard which 
love can build around its object strong enough 
and high enough to keep away temptation. 
The wall must be within, or else sooner or 
later the citadel yields to the enemy. One of 
136 



The Training of the Will. 137 

the most significant of the old Homeric stories 
is that of the Greeks vainly endeavoring to build 
up a wall in front of their ships which should 
defend them from their Trojan foes, and thus 
take the place of the strength and courage of 
their hero, Achilles, avIio had withdrawn from 
their midst. The moment of danger came; at 
the height of the battle the wall gave way and 
Hector and his troops rushed in upon them. 
The same is true to-day that was true in the 
days of the Iliad. Sooner or later external 
walls must give way; the inner wall alone can 
stem the tide of temptation. The moral will- 
power of the child becomes strong only as his 
conscience becomes enlightened and educated. 
Whether the moral faculty is innate or a 
matter of education, is a disputed point. " In- 
herited virtue," says Washington Irving, " is 
a patent of innate nobility which far outshines 
the blazonry of heraldry." It was President 
Dwight, I think, who said that each child 
should begin his education by selecting the 
right kind of parents. Much can and should 
be said upon the matter of the moral responsi- 
bility which marriage brings. But granting 
all that is urged concerning the inheritance 
received from parents, we must still acknow- 
ledge that much is to be done in the training 



138 Instinct of Recognition, or 

of the will, and that far-reaching is the effect 
of its strength or weakness. Therefore the 
problem resolves itself into the question, how 
shall we educate aright the consciences of the 
children? Sasan Blow has defined conscience 
as " a perception of what we are, in the light 
of what we ought to be." In the past, two 
methods of educating the conscience have 
been used. The first is that of requiring 
formal obedience. The intense desire to have 
the right thing done, created in the parent a 
sternness which compelled the child to obey, 
regardless of the fact that his rationality and 
will-power were thereby weakened, or rather 
not strengthened, and the parent's will often 
grew into tyranny. The will, like every 
muscle, organ, or faculty, becomes strong by 
being judiciously exercised. These advocates 
of formal, unhesitating, unquestioning obedi- 
ence^ frequently defend their position with 
quotations from Scripture; for example, they 
will cite you the words, "Spare the rod and 
spoil the child," utterly ignoring the fact that 
rod here means punishment, just as much as 
the word inilpii stands for clergymen in the 
sentence, " The pulpits endorse the move- 
ment," or the word sail for vessel, in " They 
captured ten sail." Again, they will frequently 



The Training of the Will 139 

refer you to that passage o£ Scripture wliicli 
says, " Children obey your parents," though 
they oftentimes forget to add, " in the Lord." 
We grant that the mere habit of doing right is 
something ; with very small children, it is much. 
But the will, that safeguard in the hour of 
temptation, does not begin to grow until 
definite choice is made by the individual. 
Power to choose the right comes only from 
having chosen to do right many times. 
Oftentimes too great dependence upon the 
parent's will leaves the youth who has reached 
the age of maturity still a child in strength of 
will. This is, to me, the explanation why so 
many boys who have been strictly brought up 
by pains-taking, conscientious parents, sud- 
denly enter upon a wild and reckless career as 
soon as they merge into the world at large. 

The second method of educating the con- 
science is fully as detrimental. Many persons 
have realized that virtue, to be virtue, must be 
voluntary; that will-power, to amount to any- 
thing, must be the will-power which is within 
and not without the individual ; they have there- 
fore gone to the other extreme, and have re- 
quired no obedience from the child, allowing his 
own caprice and the humor of the moment to 
govern him during that period of life when im- 



140 Instinct of Recognition, or 

pulses are strong and rationality is feeble. This 
of course lias been the extreme rebound from 
the severity of the first method. Words are 
scarcely needed to show the lack of wisdom 
in the parent or teacher who yields his judg- 
ment, which years of experience and observa- 
tion and thought have matured, to the caprice 
of the child. I once asked a mother if her 
child was in any kindergarten. " No." she 
answered, "I took him to one, but he didn't 
care to stay, so I let him come home, and we 
have not attempted it since. I am sorry." 
The momentary mood of the child had over- 
ruled the rational judgment of the mother. 
Compulsion is the attempt to secure obedience 
regardless of the child's desire; this desire must 
disappear before each right exercise of the will. 
Caprice is allowing the desire of the moment 
to govern the conduct, regardless of future 
consequences; whereas voluntary obedience is 
the deed which is performed after the right 
stages of will-growth have been passed 
through. First, the individual is led to de- 
sire to do a thing; second, he thinks about 
it; third, he wills to do it; and fourth, he vol- 
untarily does it. Compulsion is the attempt 
to obtain the fruit of voluntary doing without 
the planting of the right seed. The creating 



The Training of the Will. 141 

of the desires for right conduct makes all the 
difference between voluntary and forced obedi- 
ence. Unfortunate indeed is the poor little 
creature who is brought up without the idea of 
obedience. Bitter must be the lessons which 
experience will have to teach him if he ever 
truly masters his life. Too many children, 
who have never been given this idea of true 
obedience during childhood, make failures of 
their after careers from the simple fact that 
they have not learned that there are certain 
mighty laws which must he obeyed. I firmly 
believe, however, that most children when 
rightly trained can be brought into obedience 
without being /orcecZ into it. 

There are of course many little devices which 
will aid the mother in leading her child to vol- 
untarily do the right thing. For example, a 
strong-willed child — that is, a child with the 
instinct of freedom largely developed within 
him — can frequently be brought into the right 
way of doing by having a choice between two 
things given him. As, for example, "You 
may be quiet, or you must leave the parlor; 
you may pick up your playthings, or you must 
go without them to-morrow." Thus a certain 
amount of freedom is given to him by this 
opportunity to choose, and at the same time a 



142 Instinct of Recognition, or 

certain amount of obedience is exacted in that 
lie must choose one or the other of the alterna- 
tives. Again, a regular time is a great aid in 
the performance of a duty. The little one who 
knows that at half-past seven he must go to 
bed, is not apt to demur when the time comes; 
whereas, the child who is sent to bed at seven 
o'clock one night, at half -past seven another, 
and at eight a third, is very apt to feel that the 
bed hour is a mere whim on his mother's part, 
and the inviolability of law which aided the 
mother in the first instance is lacking in the 
second. A friend once sent her twelve-year- 
old boy away from the table to wash his hands. 
Upon his return, she said, "Will, why do you 
persistently come to the table without washing 
your hands, when you know that each time you 
do it I send you away?" "No," answered 
the boy frankly, " you forgot to do it one time." 
That one break in the continuity of command 
had created in his mind the hope that he might 
again escape the disagreeable duty. Another 
device is giving a child a definite time when he 
must stop his play or work, with the assurance 
that he can again begin it; as, for example, 
"Come in now, it is time for you to practice; 
you can go out again to-morrow," or, " We 
must stop reading now and get ready for 



The Training of the Will, 143 

dinner ; we can read this evening." With small 
children it is often well to prepare them for the 
command in some such way as, " Five minutes 
more, and my little girl must put up her 
dollies." These, however, are mere devices 
used by the quick-witted mother ; but Froebel 
would have the laiv by which the will-power is 
developed distinctly understood. The instinct 
of recognition must be comprehended in order 
that this law may be properly applied. 

As soon as a child arrives at a perception of 
his own individuality this instinct awakens — 
he desires his individuality to be acknowledged 
by the people about him. The recognition 
usually comes through their expressed opin- 
ions concerning him and his conduct. Froebel 
says, in the motto to the little song called 
"The Five Knights,"— 

" Dear Mother, use your best and your most watchful care, 
When first he listens to some stranger who is there; 
Life's truest voice has struck upon his ear, 
A new life-stage begins, but do not fear." 

The " new life-stage " refers to the dawning 
realization in the child's mind that he "lives 
not in life alone." In the little game of " Peek- 
a-boo," common to all nurseries, Froebel traces 
the child's pleasure in the game to this joyous 
delight in being recoo-nized. "It is not so 



144 Instinct of Becogmtion, or 

much," says lie, "in the hiding of your dear 
child, as it is in the joyful anticipation of being 
found again by you." The instinct is as old as 
the race. We find outlined upon the walls of 
the Egyptian tombs pictures of their rulers and 
leaders, towering like giants above the armies 
which followed them; not that they v/ere phy- 
sically larger, but these pictures were intended 
to portray recognition of their superiority, 
their larger individuality. Wherever man has 
had the power to accomplish the desires of his 
heart we have found him building for himself 
tombs and monuments, that he as an individual 
might be recognized by future generations. 
From what comes the love of wearing medals 
and badges, but from the fact that they are the 
external sign given by some society or associa- 
tion as a testimonial of the worthiness of the 
individual to become a member of the organi- 
zation? With nations it is the same. They 
build beautiful temples, and magnificent state- 
houses, and other grand and imposing build- 
ings, that surrounding states or nations may 
acknowledge their enterprise, wealth, and 
artistic or religious superiority. It is owing to 
this instinctive desire for recognition and 
approval that public opinion has so strong a 
hold upon the mass of mankind. What is 



The Training of the Will. 145 

public opinion but the aggregation of the 
recognition of many individuals? It is not the 
number of people collected together which 
makes civilization, but the influence engendered 
by the thought of the community, or, in other 
words, the advance of public opinion. One era 
of time allowed the putting to death of cripples 
and weaklings ; in our age public sentiment has 
made it the most sacred obligation of mankind 
to tenderly care for them. This atmosphere of 
public opinion surrounds us at all times. The 
hero alone rises much above it, and almost 
beyond redemption is the soul that sinks into 
entire indifference to it. In talking of this 
subject an old farmer once said to me, " I 
sometimes find a six-foot high stalk of corn in a 
five-foot high field, and occasionally I find a 
seven-foot high stalk in a six-foot high field; 
but I never find a seven-foot stalk in a five-foot 
field." It is the same thought better expressed 
by Emerson when he said it took four hundred 
years of culture and education and French 
salons to produce a Madame De Stael. 

Drummond refers to this same subtle influ- 
ence of the opinions of others. In his little book 
called "Modes of Sanctification," he says: "In 
your face you reflect your nationality, I ask a 
man a question, and I find out in ten seconds 
10 



146 Instinct of Becogniiion, or 

whether he is a Northerner, a Southerner, a 
Canadian, or an Englishman. He has reflected 
his country in his very voice. I see reflected 
in a mirror that he has read Herbert Spencer 
and Huxley and Darwin; and as I go on 
watching him, as he stands and talks to me, his 
whole life is reflected from it. I see the kind 
of state he has been living in, the companions 
he has had; he cannot help reflecting, he can- 
not help himself from showing the environment 
in which he has lived, the influences that have 
played around him. As Tennyson says, ' I am 
a part of all that I have met.' Every man is 
influenced by the people and things that sur- 
round him. You sometimes see husband and 
wife, after half a century of fellowship, changed 
entirely into the same image. They have gone 
on reflecting one another so often that they 
have become largely made up of the same 
qualities and characteristics. That is the great 
doctrine of influences: we become like those 
witli whom we associate." 

The child comes into this moulding atmos- 
phere of opinions floating about him while the 
inborn instinct of recognition is within him, 
reaching out eagerly for the approval of the 
public opinion of his little world. Froebel 
would have the mother take advantao^e of this 



The Training of the Will 147 

condition of things and train the instinct 
aright ; for, like all other instincts given to the 
child, it can be trained upward or downward. 
/^If the mere external surroundings, appearances, 
or other incidentals, are what is praised or 
approved, vanity is engendered.f Vanity is all- 
devouring, insatiable, never-satisfied, and con- 
sequently degenerates into bragging or into 
an exaggeration of its merits in order that it 
may obtain more praise. Bragging naturally 
descends into lying and other forms of deceit. 
If, however, the approval has been given to the 
child's endeavor rather than his appearance, to 
his motive rather than his deed, the hungering 
desire for more approval leads him into greater 
effort. This engenders love; and love of this 
sort borders close on reverence. Thus the 
mother has in her hands the powerful instru- 
ments of praise and censure. That which she ' 
praises, the child will strive for ; that which she 
has unvaryingly censured, the child will avoid — 
provided, of course, that she is consistent in 
her adherence to the standards which she 
places before him. The real standard — that is, 
the standard which the life and conduct show, 
not merely the standard preached— becomes the 
child's ideal. Care should be taken not only in 
the approving or disapproving of the people , j 



148 Instind of Becogmfion, or 

about him, but mucli judgment must be exer- 
cised in what to approve of in the child himself. 
Character is to be praised rather than clothes; 
effort which helps to strengthen the character 
rather than any external gift or attraction what- 
soever. 

I knew of one mother whose child's beautiful 
golden curls attracted so much attention that 
the mother saw the effects of growing vanity and 
self-consciousness in the child. So great was 
her love for her little daughter, so clear her 
insight and so strong her will-power, that with 
her own hands she quietly cut the beautiful 
shining curls from off the little head. I know 
of but few mothers who have such courage. 
The sweet, unconscious beauty of character, 
developed at a later period in the daughter, 
showed the wisdom of the mother. We have in 
our kindergarten a little game in which one 
chiLi is placed in the center with his eyes 
closed, and another is sent out of the circle. 
The first opens his eyes and tries by memory to 
tell the name of the missing one. One morning, 
when the child who had been sent to the center 
of the circle could not recall the name of the 
absent one, another little one ventured to assist 
his memory by saying, " She had on a green 
dress, and stood next to me." Instantly one of 



The Training of the Will 149 

the older boys of the kindergarten, whose two 
years had taught him much, exclaimed with an 
emphatic shake of his head, " It doesn't make 
any difference what you wear or where you 
stand, it's what you can do." This was the 
result of my having always described the child 
sent from the circle when playing the game and 
help was needed, by some of his meritorious 
activities. I smiled to myself as I thought of 
the change in position in the world at large 
which such a standard set up by the emphatic 
boy would create. Yet, is it not the true test to 
which time finally brings all mortals ? What in 
our eyes to-day is the finery in which the 
monarchs of the sixteenth century arrayed 
themselves, compared with the deeds of Luther ? 
What is the social rank and worship which the 
Emperors demanded, compared to the reverence 
which we now give to the name of Epictetus? 
Well-told stories, which have in them admir- 
able traits of character, are powerful instru- 
ments in the hands of mothers and teachers. I 
remember at one time, as the Thanksgiving 
season approached, I decided to lead the chil- 
dren of v/hom I had charge to desire to make to 
a certain hospital a Thanksgiving offering of 
fruit saved through self-denial from their own 
luncheons. Realizing that effort was best 



150 Instinct of Becognition^ or 

made when an ideal towards which to strive 
was placed in an interesting manner before the 
child, I told them a story of a little boy and 
girl, taking care to make the two children in 
the story as attractive as possible to their 
young hearts. At the end, my little hero and 
heroine decided to do without oranges for 
breakfast for a week, and to send them to some 
little children across the street who were less 
fortunate than themselves. I then described, 
as vividly as possible, the great pleasure and 
delight which was experienced by the surprise 
of the other children, and the satisfaction felt 
by the little givers. The story ended in a 
bright, lively manner, and nothing further was 
said. The next day when luncheon time came, 
one of my older boys said, " I am going to save 
my orange to-day for some little child who 
hasn't one." " So am I ! " " And I ! " "And 
I !" exclaimed other little children. The next 
day I told them of the hospital which I had 
visited, and of the pleasure I thought it would 
give the invalids if they knew that some dear 
little children were intending to send them part 
of their fruit for Thanksgiving day, and pro- 
posed that those who wished to share their good 
things Avith others should put them all together 
and send them to the hospital. The suggestion 



The Training of the Will 151 

was received with delight. Voluntary offerings 
were given each luncheon-time from then to 
the day before Thanksgiving. I do not mean 
to claim by this that any especial influence is 
obtained or effect produced by the " goody- 
goody " stories in which supernatural children 
do unnatural things ; but simply that the true, 
wholesome, generous deed, within the possibil- 
ity of the child's performance, can be made so 
attractive in its ideal form of story or game 
that the child voluntarily attempts to do like- 
wise. " The deeds attained by great souls," 
says Alger, "become the ideals towards which 
lesser souls strive. In fact, the greatest thing 
that a hero does for the world is to he a hero and 
thereby inspire others to heroic living." When 
this holding of the ever-advancing ideal before 
the child in so attractive a manner as to draw 
his affections toward it is once understood, the 
mother or teacher can lead the child to will to 
do almost anything. 

When we see the little street Arabs of our 
large cities, ragged, dirty, and hungry, smok- 
ing cigarettes or cigars with a triumphant air 
of having attained a much-envied distinction, 
we know that their standard of manhood is 
measured by the length of the cigar or size of 
a pipe which a man can smoke. We know that 



152 Insiincf of Becogmtlon, or 

high ideals have never been given to their 
little souls, and that they have reached out for 
some standard by which to measure their 
growing manliness, and have taken this external 
distinction as the test. With this thought in 
our minds, we cannot urge too strongly upon our 
public schools the celebration of such days as 
Washington's Birthday, Decoration Day, and 
other days which commemorate the great heroes 
of a nation. So, too, have the monuments and 
statues in our parks and public squares a bene- 
ficial influence. By these means children learn 
to know what are the types of character which 
a nation delights to honor. 

Froebel so well understood the value of 
placing attractive ideals before children that he 
has given us a little dramatic game of "The 
Five Knights." This can be used as a little 
song or play with the baby in the nursery, in 
which case the fingers galloping over the table 
represent the knights galloping into the court- 
yard of the castle. With the older children in 
the kindergarten it is usually dramatized by 
five children being selected to represent the five 
knights. These are sent out, and at a certain 
stage of the game come galloping into the 
room, always upon an imaginary cliarger such 
as would have delighted the souls of the heroes 



The Training of the Will 153 

of old. True to his method of always choosing 
the symbolical thing by which to teach the 
child, Froebel has selected the knight as a 
symbol of the highest public opinion. They 
not only draw forth the child's admiration of 
the man on horseback, with his power to 
control the brute-force beneath him, but they 
also symbolize that class of persons who have 
the most complete control over themselves, who 
were universal when the rest of the race was 
feudal and narrow. Knighthood arose among 
the class of men who forswore all that w^as low 
and debasing when the world was sunk in igno- 
rance and sensuality, and the word still remains 
as a title of the best of the race. When we 
speak of knightly conduct we have reference to 
all that is chivalrous and truly noble. Froebel 
thus gives to the mother the hint of the class 
of persons to whom a child shall look for 
approval or disapproval. It is the base fear of 
the disapprobation of the " common herd " 
which deters many a man from stepping out of 
the rank-and-file and placing himself on the 
side of the new and needed reform ; but it is the 
love of the approval of the really best people 
which becomes an incentive for the most earnest 
endeavor upon the part of the human soul. 
Much, then, depends upon the one to whose 



154 Instinct of Recognition, or 

opinion the child listens. The final aim of the 
mother's or teacher's training is to have him 
bow in complete obedience to the still, small 
voice of God within him; but many rounds of 
the ladder have to be patiently climbed before 
this supreme strength of will can be obtained. 
A regard for public opinion is but one stage of 
the development of the will-power. 

One day I noticed that a little girl who was 
very self-willed was sewing the card given her 
in an irregular and disorderly manner. " Oh, 
Elizabeth," I exclaimed, " you are not doing 
that right! come here and let me show you how 
to do it." " No," answered the child in a self- 
satisfied tone, "Elizabeth likes it this way." I 
saw that I must appeal to the public opinion of 
the table of babies about her in order that I 
might lead her to voluntarily undo the work. 
So I asked her to show the card to the other 
children, xls is usually the case, public opin- 
ion decided in the right, and the children said 
they did not like it. " But Elizabeth likes it," 
persisted the child. "It's Elizabeth's card, 
and she is going to make it this way." I saw 
that the little community of her own equals had 
not sufficient weight to influence her, and from 
her manner I knew that it was mere caprice on 
her part. So I said, " Come with me and we 



The Training of the Will. 155 

will go over to brother's table and see what 
they think of it." We held the card up before 
the next older children, and I said pleasantly, 
"Children, what do you think of this card?" 
"It is wrong," they exclaimed, "the soldiers" 
(meaning the vertical lines) " are all tumbling 
down." By this time the public opinion of our 
little community had begun to have an effect, 
and the child turned to me and exclaimed, " It 
is a bad, nasty card, and Elizabeth will throw 
it into the fire," starting at the same time 
toward the open grate in the room. " Oh, no, 
my dear," I exclaimed, "let's go over to the 
table where the big children are. Perhaps 
they can tell us something to do with it." 
With that we walked across the room to the 
table at which my older and better-trained 
children were at work. After praising the 
forms which they were making with their 
sticks, in order to arouse within the child's 
mind a still higher appreciation of their judg- 
ment, I said, " Our little Elizabeth has a card 
she wants to show you and see if any of you 
can tell her what to do with it." The card was 
held up, somewhat unwillingly this time, and 
the children without hesitation said, "She must 
take out the crooked stitches and put them in 
straight." The oldest boy at the table added, 



156 Instinct of Recognition^ or 

"Come here, Elizabeth; I'll show you how to 
do it." With that her little chair was drawn 
up beside his larger one, and for ten minutes 
the two patiently worked over the tangled card. 
At the end of that time Elizabeth brought the 
card to me and in triumphant delight ex- 
claimed, " Now everybody will say that Eliza- 
beth's card is pretty!" I had no further 
trouble with the child in this particular direc- 
tion of taking out work when wrongly done. 
This, of course, would not be the right method 
of dealing with a very sensitive child. The 
story shows the need of increasing the standard 
of judgment by which the child is to be 
measured, in proportion to the child's estimate 
of the worth and value of his own opinions. 
The chief object in appealing to public opinion 
is to create a constantly advancing ideal toioard 
ivhich the child is attracted, and thereby to gain 
a constantly increasing effort on his part to 
realize this ideal. The ideal is usually best 
seen, as said before, in the opinions expressed 
in the presence of the child. AVith this 
thought in mind, what think you of the mother 
who tells in the child's presence, with evident 
amusement, of the naughty tricks performed 
by him ? Or of the father who pours into the 
ear of the admiring little listener, tales and 



The Training of the Will, 157 

anecdotes of what a bad boy lie was, and the 
trouble and mischief which he caused ; or of the 
friend who places in the hands of the growing 
boy such ideals as those portrayed with 
sprightliness in "Peck's Bad Boy"? 

But to return to our symbolic game. The 
knights come galloping into the supposed 
court-yard and ask the mother the privilege of 
seeing her good child. They sing: 

" We wish thy precious child to see, 
They say he is like the dove so good; 
And like the lamb of merry, merry mood. 
Then wilt thou kindly let us meet him, 
That tenderly our hearts may greet him ? " 

The supposed mother then holds out the 
imaginary child to their view, and in her turn 

sings : 

"Now the precious child behold. 
Well he merits love untold," 
At this point the knights take up the song 
with the words: 

"Child, we give thee greetings rare. 
These will sweeten many a care ; 
Worth much love the good child is. 
Peace and joy are ever his; 
Now we will no longer tarry, 
Joy unto our homes we carry." 

Here is dramatically pictured forth the 
knightly characters seeking and praising the 
good child, — the mother with joy and pride 



158 Instinct of Recognition, or 

holding him up to their view, not because of 
any external condition whatsoever, but he is 
precious because he merits love. Nor is the 
goodness left vague and indefinite, for in the 
explanation at the back of the song -book the 
child asks the mother Avhat was the song the 
knights sung as they rode away, and the 
mother tells him that it is a description of a 
good child. "Now, mother, we will listen to 
the song sung by the knights so gallant, gay, 
and strong, 'Come children quickly come, and 
hear the song we sing of this baby dear.' " 
Then follows the little song in which are dis- 
tinctly brought out the characteristics of 
activity, perseverance, love, gratitude, and 
reverence, all of which are virtues which the 
childish heart can understand. Thus the ideal 
presented in this little game is made definite 
and distinct, and the dim feeling is aroused in 
the child's mind that such are the characters 
which the best mothers and the gallant knights 
admire and praise, and this ideal becomes his 
ideal. That these are the impressions made 
upon the child by such games cannot be 
doubted by any one who has seen this game 
played in a well-organized Kindergarten ; but 
testimony is not wanting of the after-effects of 
such games. A little girl was in one of our 



The Trcdning of the Will, 159 

Kiiiclergartens for two years, and was after- 
Avards taken to Europe by her parents and re- 
mained away from Kindergarten influence for 
seven or eight years. Upon her return to 
America a friend asked her what she remem- 
bered of her Kindergarten experience. "Very 
little," she replied; "I have been so entirely 
shut away from any association with the 
thought of it that it has nearly passed out of 
my memory. Of course," she added, "I re- 
member some things." "What," persisted the 
inquirer, "do you remember most distinctly?" 
*'Well, for one thing," said she slowly, "I re- 
member a little game we used to play in which 
some knights came galloping into the room. I 
do not remember much about the details of the 
game, but I can recall even now the great 
waves of joy which used to pass over me as we 
played the part of holding out the good child 
for the knights to see." 

In one lovely home, where the mother had 
learned to comprehend the underlying thought 
of this little game and had explained it to the 
father, the latter took upon himself the role of 
the knight. Each evening when he came home, 
their little boy ran out to meet him, and the 
father took him up in his arms, then turned 
and asked the mother if Henry had tried to be 



160 Instinct of Recognition, or 

a good boy during the day. If she replied 
yes, the father and son had a royal good romp 
until dinner-time. If her reply was no, the 
father quietly and solemnly set the little fellow 
down upon the floor and walked out of the 
room. So earnestly did the child learn to look 
forward to this nightly approval or disapproval 
of his conduct, that he would often stop in the 
midst of his play during the day and ask his 
mother if he had been good enough for her to 
say yes to-night. 

In the second part of the song of "The 
Five Knights," the knights again come and 
greet the mother, asking to see her good child. 
This time the mother sadly shakes her head 
and says : 

"Ah, friendly knights, I grieve to say, 
I cannot bring him to you to-day; 
He cries, is so morose and cross, 
That all too small we find the house." 

The knights then turn, and as they leave the 
mother, they sing, — 

" Oh, such tidings give us pain; 
We would have sung a joyous strain; 
We'll ride away, we'll ride afar, 
To where the good little children are." 

In this way the child gets the idea that the 
best people of the world are attracted toward 



The Training of the Will 161 

that which is good, and fly from that which is\ 
evil. In fact, we need scarcely say of the best 
people, is it not the virtue which is shown in 
each individual that causes him to be loved at 
all? Is it not the faults of people about us 
which separate us from them ? The sooner the 
child learns the unifying effect of good, and the 
isolating effect of evil conduct, the more earn- 
estly will he strive to attain unto the one and to 
avoid the other. Censure is as necessary as 
praise in making definite the ideal set before 
the child. Its office should be rightly under- 
stood, however. The supposed child in this song, 
dramatized by the real child, gives pleasure to 
his mother and the brave knights when he is 
good, and sorrow and pain when he has done 
wrong. Thus comes to the child the beginning 
of the thought, that as a man cannot live unto 
himself alone, so too he cannot sin unto himself 
alone ; that every deed has its effect upon others. 
In the third phase of the song, the knights 
again come and inquire of the mother concern- 
ing her child. This time she joyously replies 
that her child has become so good that he is 
very dear to her, and that she cannot spare him 
to them. At this the knights wave their hands 
in congratulation and trot swiftly away. Here 
we have the final stage in this progressive 
11 



162 Instinct of Recognition^ or 

drama, illustrating how to train the child by 
means of holding a beautiful and attractive 
ideal before him. Joy, praise, love and com- 
radeship are shown to have been merited by the 
good child; regret, sorrow, pain and isolation 
are - shown to be the consequences of wrong- 
doing. Return of companionship, forgiveness 
of his wrong-doing, and harmony, can be 
restored when the child turns from his wrong- 
doing and strives to do right. This last point 
is an important one. It cannot be too earnestly 
considered. The reconciliation after the wrong- 
doing means much for the future nearness of 
the child to the one who has forgiven him. As 
in this little game the knights were ready to 
come again with their welcome and approval as 
soon as the child was worthy of it, so too should 
the child in real life feel that it is his own 
wrong-doing only which separates him from 
those he loves. 

If you must say, ''You cannot come into 
mamma's room," always add " until you are 
more courteous." Never forget that little word 
" until'^^ it means that the ideal can be restored 
and the child can again strive to realize it, 
through patient, earnest endeavor. There must 
be no failure of sympathy upon your part the 
moment it is asked for. In the depth of isola- 



The Training of the Will 163 

tion caused by wrong-doing, let there be tlie 
underlying feeling upon the part of the child 
which prompted the prodigal son to say, " I 
will arise and go unto my father." This is the 
one hope which the despairing soul has. In every 
way let the child feel that it is his ivrong-doing 
alone which causes the separation ; that under- 
neath are the everlasting arms of love. Thus 
will he learn the meaning of the message of 
Christ to the world that he came not to 
reconcile God unto man, but man unto God. 
And little by little will come the realization that 
free-will is not the liberty to do ivhatever one 
likes, hut the power to compel one^s self to obey 
the laws of right, to do what ought to be done 
in the very face of otherwise overwhelming 
impulse. 



1 



CHAPTEE YIII. 



THE SOUL, 



THE INSTINCT OF REVERENCE, OR THE TRAINING 
OF THE WORSHIP. 

Eiglitly understood, the tell-tale body pro- 
claims every mood of the inner world. If a 
child comes bounding forward with outstretched 
arms and radiant smile, the mother knows that 
there is working within no conscious remem- 
brance of wrong which needs reproof, no 
thought of command disobeyed. Let him 
answer her call with dragging step or downcast 
eyes, and she knows that something is wrong; 
that a barrier has been raised between them. 
In many less pronounced ways the attitude of 
the child's body and the expression of his face 
help the mother instinctively to read what is 
going on within her offspring's mind, even 
before he can tell her in words of his likes and 
dislikes, his desires and emotions. If all 
mothers knew that the soul could be read by 
means of the body, there would be less misun- 
derstood childhood and fewer great and painful 
gaps between parent and child. 
164 



The Training of the Worship. 165 

Here again we find that insight proves 
and makes strong the natural instinct of the 
mother. Here again we see that study, travel, 
and breadth of culture can become aids for 
this highest work of woman, namely, child- 
culture. All study of art shows that the great 
painters, sculptors, poets and dramatists, have 
depicted certain inner states of mind or soul 
by similar attitudes of head, hand and body. 
For example, the clasped hands denote entreaty. 
In Yedder's illustration of Omar Khayyam's 
Judgment Scene, the Recording Angel is seen 
above with his Book of Judgment, and below 
are seen the clasped hands of the terrified and 
beseeching multitude. No faces are needed to 
add to this tale of despair; the hands alone 
tell us the story, the whole story. Over and 
over again do we find this external bodily 
gesture made to express the internal condition 
of the mind. 

One morning, in one of our large kindergar- 
tens, a young and somewhat inexperienced 
director was trying to teach the children a 
new song in which the fingers of one hand 
represented the pigeons flying in and out of 
the house made by the other hand. One shy 
little fellow did not take part in the dramatic 
representation. I saw from the nervous 



166 The Instinct of Reverence, or 

twisting and clasping of his hands that ifc was 
no willful disobedience, but shyness and dread 
of being made conspicuous which prevented 
the child from imitating the teacher's motions. 
Unaccustomed to reading her children by their 
bodily gestures, the young teacher turned to 
the child and said: " Freddie, why do you 
not show how the little birds fly?" In a 
moment the two tiny hands were clasped in 
entreaty. Still the unseeing director did not 
understand the appeal for mercy, but, with the 
best of intentions, took hold of the little fellow's 
fingers and began to move them for him. This 
was too much for the child, and he burst into a 
flood of tears, which astonished the poor girl 
who had intended only loving help, but who 
in reality had dragged his young soul into the 
very publicity from which he was pleading to 
escape. 

The clenched hands denote the struggle 
within, and great artists often use them as the 
only marked sign of the inward turmoil which 
the calm face and strong will are determined 
to conceal. 

The open and extended palm, which we see 
in so many oE the pictures and statues of the 
saints, indicates entire freedom from deceit or 
concealment, as if the body as well as the lips 



The Training of the Worship. 167 

were saying : " Purge me, O, Lord, cleanse 
me with hyssop that I may be clean." Just 
as surely do the hands of a little child tell us 
of his inner frankness or deceit. Does not 
the child oftentimes instinctively put his 
hands behind him or nervously twist them into 
the folds of his dress or apron when he is 
being questioned, even though a forbidden 
sweet is not 7iow in the hidden hand ? Many a 
mother or kindergartner in a trying moment 
could discover the truth or falsehood of a child 
by the right understanding of this unconscious 
language of his hands, and thus there would 
be avoided that sad catastrophe of unjust accu- 
sation. 

In the kindergarten one morning, soon after 
the entrance of a new child, I asked the circle 
of children seated about me to show me the 
little finger families, that we might learn a 
new song about them. All the little hands 
were held up with palms toward me, save the 
one new child, who in a timid, shy manner 
held his palms averted. A word was sufficient 
to turn them into the franker position which 
the others had taken, but in a moment or two 
they were again turned away. After we had 
finished the exercise and the children had 
gone to their table for work, I said to my 



168 The Instinct of Reverence, or 

assistant, " We must watcli that new boy 
carefully. He has too secretive a nature." 
Before noon that day, as I passed around the 
table to observe and commend the clay work 
of the different children, I found none upon 
his board. I asked where it was, and he made 
no reply ; but the child who sat next to him 
said, "He stuffed it all into his pocket." So 
soon did this secretiveness, discovered by the 
position of his hands, begin to manifest itself in 
the hiding of material which he did not under- 
stand was already his own. 

In Leonardo di Vinci's great picture of fche 
Last Supper, the character of each of the disci- 
ples is plainly shown by the hands. Even 
those of Our Lord are made by this master 
painter to express the two-fold nature of his 
struggle. The one hand wdtli down-turned and 
averted palm clearly says: "If it be possible, 
let this cup pass from me." The other, with 
upturned and receptive palm, calmly indicates 
the words, " Not my will but Thine be done." 

The position of the head portrays the true 
mood of the soul. The rapt and devout saint 
who thinks not of earth or of its attractions, 
is represented with face turned skyward: the 
penitent and humbled Magdalene turns her 
bowed face to the earth, and most significantly 



The Training of the Worship. 169 

is told the story of repentance, forgiveness and 
redemption, by that sin-stained face turned 
upward towards heaven's light. To me the 
church of the Madeleine in Paris is truly a 
representative of the name it bears, in that all 
the light within its windowless walls comes 
from the skylight in the roof above : it is the 
upturned face expressed in the architecture as 
well as in the paintings on the walls. The 
mother or teacher who understands these things 
will quietly wait before disturbing a child, 
whose face is thoughtfully turned toward the 
cloud, moon, or shining star, and will not dare 
to break in upon the reverential mood. The 
attitude of the body will suggest to you 
whether it is an idle day-dream in which the 
child is indulging, or a communion of his little 
soul with higher things. How much may be 
learned from the childish head which bows 
before the stern reproof or searching glance! 
The close observer will notice that when 
shame alone is disturbing a sensitive child, the 
head droops ; if with shame is commingled love 
and a desire for reconciliation, the head leans 
a little to one side as well as downward ; if the 
head is bowed, but averted, the conquest is but 
half made, the sin is admitted but the heart 
is not won. 



170 The Instinct of Bever-ence, or 

The degree to which the soul can express 
itself through its body varies of course with 
different children. To the true mother the 
child's eyes are too well known as the open door 
to his soul's condition to need more words from 
me. Perhaps no other part of the body speaks 
in such a subtle manner of the inner rightness 
or wrongness as the chest. It is here that the 
sense of courage, honor, and self-respect, or 
their absence, is plainly declared. What is it 
which has given Mr. Daniel French's study of 
the Minute Men at Concord the poAver to stir 
every American heart? Mildness and determi- 
nation sit upon the brow and hover around the 
closed lips ; knowledge and suppressed indigna- 
tion are shown in the strong hands; alertness 
and readiness to act upon the moment are to be 
read in the position of the body ; but the follow- 
ing immortal words are as plainly declared by 
the expanded chest as by the written historic 
Declaration of Independence: 

" When, in the course of human events, it 
becomes necessary for one people to dissolve 
the political bands which have connected them 
with another, and to assume among the powers 
of the earth the separate and equal station to 
which the laws of nature and of nature's God 
entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions 



The Training of the Worship. 171 

of mankind requires that they should declare 
the causes which impel them to the separation. 
"We hold these truths to be self-evident — that 
all men are created equal; that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalien- 
able rights; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." 

Whoever has witnessed Edwin Booth's "Shy- 
lock " has seen the character of the sordid, self- 
debasing usurer almost as plainly delineated by 
the sunken chest as by the words of Shake- 
speare. Imagine, if you can, Uriah Heap with 
a broad, expanded chest! Of course, physical 
disability must not be confounded with moral 
unsoundness; the former shows its depressing 
symptoms in all of the moods of the child, that 
is, it is permanent; the latter affects him only 
temporarily when the sense of self-respect is at 
low tide. 

It was my good fortune to meet once a week, 
for a year or more, with a band of earnest 
teachers of all grades. For w^eeks we discussed 
what outer sign would help us to discover 
whether the unfulfilled task of the child was 
due to a physical disability, to mental disincli- 
nation, or to mere caprice. With this thought 
in mind we watched and studied our pupils; 
the brightness or dullness of the eye was no 



172 The Instinct of Reverence, or 

criterion, as too often an inward fever gave an 
added sparkle to the eye, an added flush to the 
cheeks ; the clearness of the skin did not denote 
ahvays freshness and purity of blood, it 
being oftentimes a matter of inheritance. Indi- 
cation after indication was suggested, discussed 
and tested. Finally, it was agreed that the well 
child carried at all times an active, expanded 
chest, except when a sense of shame or loss of 
integrity overpowered him, when the sunken 
chest proved the certainty of wrong conduct; 
also that the child whose physical state is 
a hindrance to his mental effort could be known 
by his sunken chest which never expanded. In 
a word, that this part of the body rarely fails 
as a sign by which the thoughtful, alert mother 
or teacher may read moral rectitude or its 
opposite. 

Without self-respect there is no possibility of 
building up a law within. A human being who 
has it not must remain forever subject to an 
outside law: noblesse oblige must be an unknown 
power to him. Therefore, any marring of that 
precious germ is of incalculable injury to the 
child's future stability and strength of char- 
acter. Let me give you an illustration of the 
value of this knowledge of attitudes to those 
who must deal with that sensitive and jet 



The Training of the Worship. 173 

important thing, a little child's self-respect. 
We were playing one morning in Kindergarten 
a game which requires a quick galloping on 
the part of some of the children while the oth- 
ers remained sitting. As the horsemen came 
galloping by, one little fellow stuck out his 
foot in an attempt to interrupt the play; it 
was his first violation of the rule of all our 
games, which is non-interference with the rights 
of others; so I smiled and shook my head; 
again the horsemen came careering past, again 
the little foot went out to interrupt the gallop ; 
this time I said: "Charlie, do not do that, it 
spoils our game." A third time the horsemen 
had to make their charge, and a third time the 
obstinate little foot went out; this unmistak- 
ably was open, conscious wrong- doing, and 
must be effectually checked and at once. I 
stopped the game and said: " Children, we can- 
not finish our play ; step back to the circle ; 
Charlie has spoiled it for all of us." There 
was the dead silence usual upon such infre- 
quent occasions. All took their places in the 
play circle, and all eyes were turned toward 
Charlie. The little head began to sink; this 
was an indication of the inward shame which I 
intended he should feel, as the laws of each of 
our games are precious to us all and the train- 



174 The Instinct of Reverence, or 

ing into absolute obedience to these laws is one 
of the best things in the Kindergarten ; but at 
the same time that the little head went down, 
the chest began to sink, and I saw that my 
reproof had been too great for the little fellow ; 
-his self-respect had been injured. In a moment 
I was on my knees beside him with my arms 
around him ; the few words of needed apology 
were soon given and accepted, but the chest 
did not come up to its natural position until, 
when the play-time had ended, I turned and 
asked him to lead in the march back to the 
seats, thereby showing my returning respect 
for him. 

We have been speaking of the aid which this 
study gives to our understanding of the child. 
Let us now turn to the value of it in helping 
us to train him aright. 

The effect of the body upon the mind is not 
generally appreciated. That a sound mind 
can work freely, a well-balanced character 
develop fully, only in a sound body, is ad- 
mitted by all; but the more subtle influence 
is not so easily comprehended. Of equal 
importance is this other side of the question. 
If mind or soul acts upon the body, the 
outward gesture and attitude also reacts upon 
the inward feeling. The artists of the world 



The Training of the Woi^ship. 175 

have portrayed the former; the thinkers have 
taught us the latter, and our close study of the 
child verifies them both. The soul speaks u 
through the body, and the body in return 
gives its command to the soul. Try for a 
moment to think intently upon some difficult 
subject with your body in a lazy, relaxed 
posture, or arouse your body to a perfectly 
erect position, similar to the one given us in 
that beautiful portrait of the Queen Louise of 
Prussia, and see for yourself the effect which 
it produces upon you ; you can then understand 
why the military position is obligatory to the 
soldier, the constant aitUude of courage 
engenders the soldierly virtue. What is the 
advice of the wide-awake business man to the 
discouraged and faint-hearted friend who comes 
to him for counsel? " Hold up your head and 
be a man," he says, unconsciously coupling 
the physical attitude with the desired mental 
condition. Plato, in his " Eepublic," claims 
that the right training of the body in gym- 
nastics, in time with some rhythmical music, 
has an undoubted effect upon character, the 
gymnastics tending to develop the spirited 
part of man's nature and the musical accom- 
paniment toning this development down to 
gentleness, but not to effeminacy. He adds, 



176 The Inst hid of Reverence, or 

"Those who devote themselves to games 
exclusively become ruder than they ought to 
be." 

In the second part of " Wilhelm Meister," 
Goethe's master-work on education, the chil- 
dren in the ideal Province of Pedagogy are 
trained to take one of three attitudes, accord- 
ing to their degree of development, whenever 
an overseer or teacher passes, whether it be in 
school room, playground or field. The young- 
est fold their arms crosswise on the breast and 
look cheerfully towards the sky; the interme- 
diate ones have their arms behind them and 
look smilingly upon the ground; the oldest 
ones stand erect boldly, with arms at the side, 
turning their heads to the right and placing 
themselves in a row instead of remaining alone 
like the others. Naturally enough, Wilhelm 
Meister inquired as to the supposed effect of 
these strange postures upon the children. 
" Well-bred children," replied " The Three," 
" possess a great deal. Nature has given to 
each everything which he needs of home and 
abundance. Our duty is to develop this. 
Often it is better developed by itself, but one 
thing no one brings into the world, and yet it 
is that upon which depends everything through 
which a man becomes manly on every side. 



The Training of the Worship. 177 

If you can find it out for yourself, speak out." 
Willielm bethought himself for a short time, 
and then shook his head. After a suitable 
pause, they exclaimed, "Veneration!" Wil- 
helm was startled. "Veneration," they repeated, 
"it is wanting in all, perhaps in yourself. 
You have seen three kinds of gestures: we 
teach the three-fold veneration. The three 
combine to form a whole, then widen into the 
highest power and effort. The first is rever- 
ence for that which is above us; the arms 
folded on the breast, the cheerful glance toward 
the sky. That is precisely what we prescribe 
in our untutored children, at the same time 
requiring witness of them that there is a God 
above who reflects and reveals himself in our 
parents, tutors, and superiors. Second, vene- 
ration for that which is below us; the hands 
folded on the back as if tied togrether, the 
lowered smiling glance bespeaks that we have 
to regard the earth well and cheerfully. It 
gives us the opportunity to maintain ourselves, 
it affords unspeakable joys and it brings 
desperate sufferings. If one hurts oneself, 
whether intentionally or accidentally, if 
earthly chance does one any harm, let that be 
well with all, for such dangers accompany us 
all our life long, but from this condition we 
13 



178 The Insiind of Reverence^ or 

deliver a pupil as soon as possible. Directly 
we are convinced that the teachings of this 
subject have made a sufficient impression upon 
him, then we bid him be a man, look to his 
companions and guide himself with reference 
to them. Now he stands erect, when in union 
with his colleagues, does he present a front to 
the world." And in further conversation this 
wonderful " Three " explained to Wilhelm 
Meister that the three-fold gestures are to 
impress the youth with the three-fold rever- 
ence, and lead to the comprehension of the 
three great stages of religion, namely: First, 
the heathen or ethical religion; second, the 
philosophical religion, which is based upon 
man's recognition of the worships of the rest 
of the universe; and finally the third, or 
Christian religion, which recognizes the Divine 
even in humility and poverty, scorn and con- 
tempt, shame and misery, suffering and death." 
This, coming from one of the world's most 
acute observers and deepest thinkers, is a 
strong verification of the statement before 
made. 

Froebel, the Apostle of Childhood, makes 
use of the same thought in his "Mutter und 
Koselieder," when he would help the mother 
to develop aright the sense of reverence in her 



Tke Training of the Worship. 179 

child. He knew well that to develop a spirit 
of reverence was to develop a capacity for 
religion. In a talk with the mother about the 
little song called " Brothers and Sisters," 
wherein the baby is taught to slowly and softly 
fold his little hands together, as if the little 
fingers were so many children being soothed 
to sleep, Froebel says, "The care of the life of 
a child's inner and higher feeling, disposition 
and ideas belongs certainly to the most delicate 
and yet the most important and difficult part 
of his nature. From it springs all and develops 
all that is highest and noblest in the life of the 
individual and the race, and ultimately all 
religious life which is at one with God in dis- 
position, thought and deed." 

"When and where does it begin?" he asks. 
Then adds, " It is with it as with the germs 
of plants and seeds in the spring ; they are 
there long before they are outwardly visible. 
So we know not when and where this develop- 
ment commences in the human being. If we 
begin cultivating it too soon, we make the 
same mistake as by exposing seeds too soon 
and too much to the developing sunlight and 
nourishing dampness. Both would injure the 
tender germ. If we begin too late or too 
feebly, we are met by the same result; what is 



180 The Insthid of Reverence, or 

to be done then ? How does this inner religious 
life show itself?" 

The disease which is fastening itself upon 
the Christians of to-day is se?/-activity, the 
too great emphasis of what we must do, too 
little of what God has done. The bustling 
Sunday-school superintendent ; the hurried, 
impatient mother teaching her child his cate- 
chism while tying his necktie for Sunday- 
school, are but modern versions of the story of 
Tantalus, trying to satisfy infinite longings 
with finite activities. Much of the well intended 
primary Sunday-school work loses half of its 
efficiency from the teacher's not understand- 
ing that the child must be in gentle, reveren- 
tial mood before he can be in the right religious 
attitude. The teacher should approach this 
holiest temple of God with reverence. Is 
there a place holier than the soul of a child? 
" You," said Froebel, " must keep holy the 
being of the little child. Protect it from 
every rough and rude impression, every touch 
of the vulgar ; a touch, a look, a sound, is often 
sufficient to inflict savasre wounds. A child's 
soul is often more tender and vulnerable than 
the finest or tenderest plant." Surely this is 
an important question for the mother who con- 
siders the training of the divine element in her 



The Training of the Worship. 181 

child as lier highest and holiest work in life. 
Froebel then goes on to say that there must be 
some necessary connection between the outside 
bodily gesture and the inward soul-attitude. 
" That so slight a thing as the gentle folding of 
the hands, with an external quietness, impresses 
the little soul with an inner feeling of collected 
force or unity, which is the germ of that great 
and strono^ relio^ious conviction which leads us 
to speak of God as the ' Life in whom we live 
and move and have our being.' " He tells the 
mother that hy the good things ichich she thinks, 
she can bind her child to good by many links ; 
in other words, that the good thoughts within 
Aer heart tell themselves unconsciously through 
her bodily gestures and expressions of face, 
impressing silently the child's heart. 

This is the same thought which he again 
expresses when he says, " The child's first 
ideas of prayer come to him when an infant by 
the mother's kneeling beside his crib in silent 
prayer; her bowed head and kneeling body 
tell of submission to and reverence for a power 
greater than herself; her tone of voice when 
she speaks of sacred things is far more effect- 
ual with the little listener than the words she 
says. Soft, low, sacred music, some beautiful 
picture of a sad-faced Madonna-like mother 



182 The Instinct of Reverence. 

watcliing over her sleeping child, flood his 
little soul with reverence." It is this sense of 
reverence which he needs more than dogmatic 
or specific teaching at this early period of life. 
Oh, mother! Does not the thought that your 
real inner life inevitably tells upon that of 
your child, rouse in you the desire to live the 
highest, noblest spiritual life of which you are 
capable ? 



CHAPTEE IX. 

THE INSTINCT OF IMITATION, OR THE TRAINING 
OF THE FAITH. 

The instinct of imitation is one of the most 
important factors in a child's education. This 
instinct is universal, although the power to 
imitate varies with different children. By uni- 
versal instinct is meant one which manifests 
itself in all races and conditions, and not one 
which is the res alt of some peculiarity of in- 
heritance or environment in any one class. 
/^Imitation is the unconscious effort of a child 
to understand life, by doing as the people 
about him are doing. It is his natural impulse 
to test the actions of people about him.,. The 
value which the world places upon this 
line of conduct is shown by the adage, "Put 
yourself in his place," which is often used 
when an appeal is made for charity of judg- 
ment or even for justice. It is only when we 
ourselves imitate any line of work that we get 
into real sympathy with other workers in the 
same direction. "It takes a hero," says Les- 
sing, "to write the biography of a hero;" only 
a man of equal or greater power can rightly 
183 



184 The Insiind of Imiiaiion, or 

understand tlie liero. Christ applied this test 
when He told His disciples that they could 
know the will of His father in heaven by doing 
it. We shall find that this instinct is used as 
an aid in human affairs, from the teaching of 
the tiny babe to wave his hand, "By-by," on 
through all intermediate efforts of mankind, to 
that class which takes as its ideal the highest 
injunction given to man, "Be ye therefore per- 
fect, even as your Father which is in Heaven 
is perfect." 

We see the manifestation of this inborn im- 
pulse in children of all stages of growth. The 
child of two years is filled with delight when 
his mother teaches him to say "Bow-wow" like 
the dog, or "Moo-moo' like the cow, or shows 
him how to swing his ball like a bell, or to 
make it spring like a cat. The girl of the same 
age, or a little older ; will nurse her doll and ten- 
derly sing it to sleep, or shake it and scold it, 
according to the treatment she has seen given 
to children by mother or nurse. Often in my 
twilight walks il have seen the various activi- 
ties of a great city mirrored in the imitative 
play of the street children. Here is a mere 
speck of humanity, toddling along with a di- 
lapidated toy Avagon with stray bits of wood in 
it, and calling in a hio^h childish treble some 



The Training of the Faith. 185 

indistinguishable words wliich an older sister 
explains as intended for, "Kindling for sale." 
There, rushing up the street, comes a boyish 
form, with arms swinging, and voice shouting 
rapidly, "Lang, lang, laug, lang!" and the im- 
aginary fire-engine has flashed by. Again, if 
it be near election time one may meet a flaring 
torch-light procession consisting perhaps of 
but three small boys ; the torch -lights may be 
an old broom, a picket from a fence, and a 
crooked stick, still the commanding spirit is 
there, usually imitating a drum major, and the 
loyal legions are marching close behind him 
as if inspired by the strongest party feeling. 
In yonder vacant lot a handful of boys are 
stirring up the feeble blaze of a bonfire, zeal- 
ously adding to the flame such stray fagots and 
shingles as the neighborhood affords; listen to 
their talk, and you will perceive that some em- 
bryo Daniel Boone among them is carrying 
out his day-dream, and has led his comrades 
into the hardships of pioneer life in as exact 
an imitation of the hero of some tale as he can 
attain unto. The real or ideal world in which 
these children's thoughts live is going on in 
mimic representation of the older and fuller 
life around them. Sad is the story which the 
student of childhood reads in the tell-tale play 



186 The Insiind of Imifcdion, or 

of children in the poorer districts. There is 
the drunkard who is unwillingly reeling home, 
escorted by a would-be policeman ; here is the 
daring robber who can outrun or outwit the 
pursuing officers of justice, for which over- 
reaching of the law he receives the vociferous 
applause of his companions. A five o'clock 
morning walk in one district showed me three 
wrecks of womanhood standing with dejected 
lassitude, waiting for the low groggeries to 
open their doors to them. An evening ramble 
over the same ground presented a score of rag- 
ged little girls playing with zest the part of 
scolding and threatening mothers, belaboring 
their children, who in turn squirmed and 
twisted, cried and begged for mercy. A mother 
needs but to watch the unguarded play of her 
own nursery to see copied the gracious manner 
of some visitor, the sincere welcome from the 
kindly hostess, the wise remark of the school- 
teacher, the courtesy bestowed upon the milk- 
man or grocer's boy, or oftentimes the opposite 
of all this — the affectation of the visitor, the in- 
sincere welcome of the unwilling hostess, the 
petulant reproof of the irritated school-teacher, 
the lack of courtesy to the tradesman. The 
child is but learning the life about him, and 



The Training of the Faith. 187 

by imitating it he comes into close sympathy 
with it. 

The kindergarten games are based upon this 
instinct of imitation and its reaction upon 
character. In the game called "Bird's Nest," 
two children act the part of father-bird and 
mother-bird, and others take the part of bird- 
lings in the nest. The former prepare the nest 
and feed the baby birds, and finally teach them 
how to fly. I think no one could witness this 
game and not feel that the parental love was 
being surely and rightly trained, and that no 
amount of word explanation could give the 
child as sympathetic an understanding of the 
relationship between parent and offspring as is 
established by such simple imitative play. We 
have another game in which several children, 
each with his hands upon the hips of the child 
in front of him, creep along the floor, in imita- 
tion of a worm, until finally they curl them- 
selves up into a cocoon which lies quite still 
upon the floor, while the rest of the children 
sing "Good-bye, till you come out a butterfly." 
Then comes a pause in which there is some- 
times represented rain or wind, or other phases 
of the weather, through which the cocoon re- 
mains undisturbed. When the song takes up 
the words, "Oh, there it is! Oh, see it fly, a 



188 The Instinct of Imitation^ or 

lovely, lovely butterfly," the head child creeps 
out and on light tiptoe, with arms waving in the 
air, flits about the room in imitation of a but- 
terfly. A morning or tT\^o after the introduc- 
tion of this game into my Kindergarten, a 
child full of life and animal spirits came run- 
ning to meet me with a face which proclaimed 
some good news that he was eager to tell. He 
began, "I saAv a truly little Avorm this morn- 
ing." "Did you? Did you watch him crawl?" 
"Yes, and I picked him up and put him over 
into a yard, so he wouldn't get stepped on, 
cause I knowed what a nice butterfly he might 
be some day!" All the glow of intense and 
tender sympathy Avas in his face and voice; he 
was indeed at one with God's creation ; the 
worm and he had become brothers, through his 
having imitated its form of activity. As I 
looked down into his soul-lit eyes, I wondered 
if this childish sympathy would not some day 
help him to save, for the sake of the glorious 
possibilities which lie in each of them, the lit- 
tle worms of humanity which crawl about the 
streets and gutters of our large cities. In an- 
other game, in which one or two of the chil- 
dren imitate scissor-grinders, and the others 
the owners of the scissors and knives that need 
repairing, we are accustomed not only to play 



The Training of the Faith. 189 

that we pay the household benefactors, but 
usually thank them quite courteously for their 
services. At one time I called in a real scis- 
sors-grinder, and had him sharpen and tighten 
some scissors, in order that the children might 
see the operation and the more perfectly imi- 
tate it. After he had completed his Avork, I 
paid him his money and opened the door for 
him to go out, when one little girl exclaimed 
in astonishment, "Why, you forgot to thank 
him, too!" She had in play been a scissors- 
grinder, and knew that recognition was due as 
well as money. 

The parts enacted in all games of the Kin- 
dergarten are of an ennobling kind. The at- 
traction which the role of the wild and reckless 
robber, who places himself outside the pale of 
the law, has for the child, is changed in the 
Kindergarten to a higher phase of the same 
daring spirit — for example, that of the brave 
and self -controlling knight, who is above law. 
All that is beautiful in nature^birds, bees, 
flowers, running water, fishes, even the stars 
themselves — is personified by the children ; all 
that is useful or noble among the activities of 
man — the farmer, the miller, the baker, the 
cobbler, the cooper, the grimy blacksmith or the 
lordiy-.mayor of a city — is reproduced in childish 



190 The Instinct of Imitation, or 

play in the Kindergarten. The children's 
hearts are put into harmony with all that ex- 
ists, save wrong alone. One year my own 
study was concentrated upon Homer, and, as is 
natural with the true Kindergartner, that which 
delighted me was made into childish story and 
given again to my children. We had stories 
of the young Achilles, who, though so strong 
and brave, could yet control his temper, and at 
the bidding of the goddess Pallas Athene could 
put up his sword and leave the angry Agamem- 
non. Thrilled and enraptured, the children 
listened to the story of the tender and true 
Hector, who could put aside his baby boy and 
leave his wife that he might go and defend his 
country. With an interest akin to that of the 
child-race to whom the story was first sung, 
they listened to the wise Ulysses and his plans 
for capture of the Trojan city and the rescue 
of beautiful Helen ; truly were our days heroic, 
proving to me that all really high and great 
literature holds that which is wholesome and 
good for the little child, when one knows how 
to give it aright. Truth is always helpful if 
Avisely given. Great books live through cen- 
turies of time because of their authors' insight 
into truth. 

Over and over again did my children ask for 



The Training of the Faith. 191 

tlie stories of those old Greek heroes. At last 
a child said, "Let's play Troy!" "How can 
we?" said I. "Oh, don't you see?" was the 
ready answer. "The chairs can be the walls 
of Troy, just so," (arranging them in a circle, 
backs turned outward,) "this table with four 
legs can be the horse, ever so many of us can 
get in under it and be the Greek soldiers 
while the rest can push us into the city, then 
we can get the beautiful Helen and take her 
home." So eager were all to attempt the 
dramatizing of the stories told, that chairs and 
tables were soon arranged, and the various 
names of the heroes to be represented were se- 
lected. One chose to be the strong Achilles , 
another the good Diomed, whom the gods helped 
in the fight; another was Ajax, the brave; 
another was Hector, and so on, until all the 
more heroic characters were chosen. The beau- 
tiful Helen was to be represented by a dear 
little fair-haired girl of four, a favorite of all. 
To test them I said: "Where is Prince Paris? 
Who will be Prince Paris?" There was a 
dead silence; then one boy of six, in 
scornful astonishment exclaimed: "Why, 
nobody wants to be him — he was a bad, 
selfish man!" "Well," said I, "the tongs can 
be Paris," and from that time forward when- 



192 The Instinct of Imitation^ or 

ever they cared to play tlieir improvisation of 
the old Greek poem the royal Helen was gravely 
led into the walled city of Troy, with the tongs 
keeping step at her side, as a fit representa- 
tion of the inner ugliness of weak and profli- 
gate young princes. I merely relate this inci- 
dent to show that when children have been led 
to represent the good and true, they do not 
wish to play a baser part. I firmly believe the 
school of the future will see the noisy, boister- 
ous, lawless "recess" of the primary depart- 
ments replaced by lively, active impersona- 
tions of historic scenes, or of the early life of 
our own country, which the children are be- 
ginning to learn. Playing these heroic parts 
strengthens the heroic element within, and aids 
in the building of that inner wall without 
which no child is safe. 

That a mother may know how she can 
rightly begin the religious as well as the secu- 
lar training of her child, Froebel uses the 
following incident, which is an example of this 
instinct of imitation: A child is taken out for 
an airing on a windy day, and notices, as he 
naturally would by the law of recognition, the 
moving objects about him; among them a 
weathervane, a very common object in Ger- 
many. He sees that it moves from side to 



The Training of the Faith. 193 

side, and instinctively imitates it so that he 
may understand it. The mother, whose in- 
sight tells her that this is a critical moment in 
the child's life, playfully aids him in his at- 
tempt to turn his hand upon his wrist as the 
weathervane turns upon the rod, and sings 
some such ditty as this: 

" As the cock upon the tower 

Turns in wind and storm and shower, 

So my baby's hand is bending, 

And his pleasure has no ending." 
To show the deep meaning which lies in 
childish play, Froebel has used an incident of 
common everyday life for each song in his 
"Mutter und Koselieder," carefully choosing 
those which are the most helpful to the moth- 
er. The earnest student will find imbedded 
in each incident a lesson for the child which 
may be eternal in its influence upon him. Thus, 
in this seemingly insignificant attempt to imi- 
tate the weathervane, Froebel, with his proph- 
et's eye, sees that the child is attempting to 
find the invisible cause back of the visible mov- 
ing object; sees, too, that it is the mother's 
opportunity to begin to impress upon him the 
great lesson that behind all visible manifesta- 
tions of life is a great Invisible Power. Sci- 
ence may call it Force; Art may call it Har- 
mony; Philosophy may call it World Order; 

13 



194 The Instinct of Imitation, or 

various religions have called it God, but 
Christianity calls it ^^ Our Father ^ This is an 
important moment in a child's life, this first 
groping after the unseen. Are not the great, 
the powerful, the lasting things of life all in- 
visible? To again turn to nature for illustra- 
tions, the great attractive and repulsive forces 
have thrown up the vast mountain ranges 
and cleft them in twain; gravitation has 
settled their crumbling fragments into level 
plains, and caused the water-courses to sweep 
in given directions; capillary attraction has 
drawn the water up into the seed cells and 
caused plant life to germinate and vegetation 
to cover the plains; chemical action and assim- 
ilation have changed vegetable and animal 
food into human blood; appetites have caused 
the human being to seek food and shelter and 
the opportunity to propagate his kind ; parent- 
al instinct has given rise to family life ; piihlic 
sentiment has maintained the sanctity of the 
marriage tie and the safety of family posses- 
sions; business credit has made trade life pos- 
sible; pa/rio/ism has banded these communi- 
ties of civic life into national life: religion is 
yet to unify the nations of the earth into one 
common brotherhood. All these are invisible 
forces. What is the tribute paid to character, 



The Training of the Faith. 195 

over and above wealth and beauty, but a trib- 
ute to the unseen? Without friendship, sym- 
pathy, love, aspiration, ideality, what would 
life be worth ? No wonder that he who lives 
only in the visible, tangible things of this 
world asks the question : "Is life worth living?" 
Pill a soul with the realization of the invisi- 
ble, and the question needs no answei*; that 
soul knows that life is worth living. Why 
are the battles with doubt, the struggles with 
death, the agonies of disgrace, so awful, so 
terrible, so soul-wrecking ? Is it not that the 
visible side of life has gained an undue foot- 
hold in the sufferer's mind? Fill a life with 
noble deeds, with the joy that arises from un- 
selfish activity, and the scales will re-adjust 
themselves, the "light afflictions will be seen 
to work out a far more and exceeding weight 
of glory." 

Froebel, believing, as he himself expresses 
it, that "these first impressions are the root 
fibres of the child's understanding which is 
developed later," calls the mother's attention 
to this early interest in moving things mani- 
fested by the child, and tells her that by aid- 
ing his attempt to imitate the movements of 
external objects, like the weathervane, she 
helps him to understand them, and to know 



196 The Insiind of Imiiation, or 

that as an iinseen force in him turns his hand 
so an unseen force must turn the attractive 
weathervane. This knowledge Froebel would 
have her aid by word and song ; for long before 
a baby can distinguish words, much less un- 
derstand them, he gains impressions of his 
mother's meaning by repeated association of 
word and act. That the little thinker does see 
that like effects are produced by like causes, is 
evident to anyone who has made a study of 
childi-en. The lisping two-year-old baby in 
the family of a friend of mine was taught by 
the older children to solemnly bow his head up 
and down several times to each person present, 
when he was brought into the breakfast room, 
and to attempt to say: "How do you do?" with 
each ceremonious bending of the little head. 
The effect was absurdly droll to the other 
children, who with like solemnity would slowly 
and repeatedly return the salutation. One 
breezy morning he chanced to be left alone 
upon the veranda. The branches of the maple 
tree in front of the house were slowly sway- 
ing up and down, and soon attracted his atten- 
tion. With puzzled interest he watched them 
for a short time; then a light broke over his 
face, and he began to bow his head in like 
manner, and to say "How-do! How-do!" He 



The Training of the Faith. 197 

had logically and to his satisfaction solved the 
mystery ; the outside world was giving him a 
morning greeting. Another friend was walk- 
ing along a street in a city with her child of 
three years. As they approached a railway 
crossing, an engine passed. "Mamma, " said 
the child, "what makes the engines go so fast?" 
The mother explained, as well as she could, 
that it was the steam inside of it which caused 
its rapid motion, and asked him if he did not 
see the clouds of white steam coming out of the 
top of the smoke-stack. After walking a block or 
two farther, a girl ran swiftly across the street; 
the little investigator looked up questioningly 
into the mother's face, and said, "Mamma, I 
didn't see no white steam coming out of the 
little girl's head," — inferring that if steam 
caused one thing to pass rapidly across his path, 
it must cause another like rapid motion. That 
children's minds attempt to work logically, 
needs no other proof than to watch their gram- 
matical errors, two-thirds of which are at- 
tempts to make their native tongue logical. 

In the childhood of the world, when men 
tried to express their ideas of God, the first 
characteristic recognized and represented was 
power. So, too, we see that the child's first 
recognition of the unseen is ordinarily the 



198 The Instinct of Imitation, or 

force of the wind. With what delight do all 
children, when out on a windy day, test this 
manifestation! "See!" exclaimed a little child, 
"the wind can make everything do as it likes. 
Where does it come from?" Each mother has 
had like questions eagerly put to her. "Mamma, 
what makes the smoke go up?" "Mamma, what 
makes the trees grow?" Thoughtful, indeed, 
should be the answer given, for it is the 
searching of the young soul after the unseen 
power. Then is the mothers best opportunity 
for developing a reverence for the Great Un- 
seen, bearing in mind always that increased 
reverence is increased capacity for religion. 
So great and manifold are the opportunities 
afforded by nature for such lessons, that the 
home and the kindergarten should bring as 
much of the outdoor life as they can to the 
town-imprisoned child. Right education, in 
the largest sense of the word, cannot go on un- 
less that great teacher. Dame Nature, is em- 
ployed with her gloriously illuminated text- 
books of field and forest, of sea and sky. From 
her the child should learn its cradle-hymn of 
whispering breeze, its nursery-song of run- 
ning brooks, its childhood's chant from throat 
of bird and hum of bees, in order that maturer 
life may catch the grander, fuller Iiarmonies, 



The Training of the Faith. 199 

which can come only to well- developed, rever- 
ent natures, who are ready to worship God in 
truth. The study of history shows us that the 
battle is not always to the strong, nor the race 
unto the swift. In olden times the forms of 
gods and goddesses were seen to fight first up- 
on this side and then upon that. Old Homer 
tells us that " The shout of Juno filled the 
Greeks with courage, and caused dismay to 
spread throughout the Trojan ranks." Through 
all history an invisible power has been felt, 
working for victory or defeat, until in our own 
times a Fred^nc^k Douglass could exclaim: ^'One 
Avith God is a majority!" We scarcely need to 
turn to Scripture, the climax of whose revela- 
tion is summed up in these words: " God is a 
spirit, and they that worship him must worship 
him in spirit and in truth." 

In speaking of social contact with others, 
Froebel says: "There is something else which 
early awakens in your child a respect for 
goodness, and a feeling of emulation and as- 
piration to attain unto goodness, — that is to 
say, to he good. These feelings are aroused in 
him, not by the respect and acknowledgment 
which you show to goodness in the abstract, 
but by the amount which you show to good- 
ness in others around you; every sign of re- 



200 The Instinct of Imitation, or 

spect shown to others, which appears to the 
child just and merited, and above all attainable 
by effort, spurs him on by awakening a gener- 
ous emulation." The standard of character 
which the child will strive to attain to will be 
that of the people whom he meets in his home. 
Let the child see that in dress it is the suita- 
bility, both as to occasion and size of 
purse, rather than the beauty or richness of 
material, which is to be emphasized. In gifts, 
let it be the pleasure given, instead of the 
price of the present, which is mentioned. In 
charities, let it be the childish effort to do and 
to give, rather than any sum of money given 
by the parent in the child's name. In school 
work, let it be the effort put forth and the real 
mastery of the point in hand, rather than the 
per cent, gained, which is praised. In science- 
lessons with a little child, such books as Hook- 
ers "Child's Book of Nature" are of inestima- 
ble value. Not only are the facts told, but that 
wonderful side of science which is beyond all 
explanation is always present. In story-tell- 
ing, avoid moralizing, but emphasize the in- 
visible power instead of the visible manifesta- 
tion. Let me illustrate with a story, always a 
favorite in my own kindergarten: 

Once upon a time, in the middle of a small 



The Training of the Faith, 201 

village, by the side of the great ocean, there 
stood a little stone church; on the top of the 
church stood a tall spire; on the top of the 
spire stood a gilded weathervane. Most of the 
men of the village earned a living for them- 
selves and their wives and little ones by going 
out in sail -boats to the deep waters of the sea, 
and catching fish, which they took to a neigh- 
boring city and sold for money. Each morn- 
ing these fishermen would come out of their 
huts, and, shading their eyes from the bright 
sun, would look up at the gilded weathervane 
on the tall steeple of the little stone church. If 
it turned towards the sea, they knew that the 
wind was favorable and would fill their sails, 
and would help them to get out to the deep 
water where there was good fishing. If, how- 
ever, the weathervane turned towards the land, 
they knew that the mighty wind was blowing 
away from the ocean, and that it would be use- 
less to try to get out that day. So they would turn 
their boats upside down and stop up the leaks 
which had begun to let in the water, or they 
would otherwise occupy themselves on land 
until the wind changed. The little gilded 
weathervane noticed that each day the fisher- 
men looked up to him to see whether he point- 
ed out to the sea or in towards the land, and that 



202 The Instinct of Imitation, or 

tliey seemed to obey his slightest direction ; so 
he began to feel that he was the most impor- 
tant thing in the village. Therefore, one night 
when the great wind came rushing down from 
the high mountain-tops and over the hills and 
plains, and reached the little weathervane, it 
said, in a deep, strong whisper, "Turn, turn to 
the sea." "No," said the little weathervane, "I 
am not going to mind you any longer. I am 
the most important thing in this village; why 
should I mind you ? I shall turn which way I 
please." The great strong wind blew stronger 
still ; there came a cracking, snapping noise, 
and in a moment more the little gilded weath- 
ervane was lying broken on the ground below, 
and the mighty wind had swept far out on the 
ocean. The next morning when the fishermen 
came out, they looked as usual to the top of the 
church spire; but the little weathervane was 
gone. So then they looked at the boughs of the 
trees, and saw that they were all pointing to- 
wards the deep waters of the ocean. Then they 
got into their boats and went off to fish, and 
the foolish weathervane was left unnoticed on 
the ground." 

As we never leave a story with a sad end- 
ing, because the effect upon the child is un- 
wholesome, we usually add that the sexton 



The Training of the Faith. 203 

came along by and by, and picked up the little 
weatliervane, mended it as best he could, and 
after a few days put it on the top of the steeple 
again, and that forever after the gilded weath- 
er vane was very glad to be of use by showing 
the fishermen which way the great wind was 
blowing. Here the story ends. No moral is 
pointed out. The invisible soul within such 
stories, which has caused them to be handed 
down from generation to generation, will speak 
of itself to the child in the exact degree that he 
is ready to comprehend it, and will make him 
feel that the great invisible cause is more than 
any special manifestation, no matter how prom- 
inent. , In a dim way at first, it will show him 
that the importance of any life comes not from 
its prominence, but from its usefulness. Such 
truths are life's great lessons, and it lies in our 
power to give them to the child. 

The problem before every earnest mother is 
how to so train her child that the unseen things 
in life shall be as real to him as the seen. First 
of all she must fill herself with this truth, 
must be satisfied with no line of study or of 
thought which deals simply with the external 
facts. If she is studying history, it must be 
to her not a mere compilation of dates, of kings 
and conquests. " Of what significance to me," 



204 The Instinct of Imitation, or 

exclaimed Carlyle, " are the births, marriages 
and deaths of a few petty mortals who chanced 
to be called kings and queens!" And truly, 
what is the significance, unless we seek to see 
the slow dawn of freedom in the rise and fall 
of nations, — a spiritual gain in the struggling 
steps of the race forward? Is literature to be 
studied for the sake of the beauty of style of 
this writer, or of the polished diction of that 
one? Why have the great books of the world 
lived, while thousands of rival productions have 
sunk into oblivion ? Has it n ot been because 
giant brains have lived and labored amidst 
their puny contemporaries, striving to portray 
Truth so that the dark labyrinth of life might 
seem less dark to some poor soul? Why is 
Homer still the world's great poet? Not from 
beauty of expression, not from tenderness of 
thought, not from power of imagery. Many 
have equaled and surpassed him in these re- 
spects ; but who has given to us, so powerfully 
as he, the great Soul struggling against the 
restrictions of authority? Who has so well 
portrayed the pitifulness of uselessness, of all 
great Achilles sulking in their tents, even if 
their own followers are around them, when 
greater and more universal causes are calling 
them? Mighty indeed are the lessons which 



The Training of the Faith. 205 

the old bard lias taught us. So it is with ever j 
other great book; it is not its form but its soul 
which has made it immortal. It is not the 
establishment of the Roman Catholic doctrine of 
hell, purgatory, and paradise; not the fierce 
punishment of his enemies, not even his fiery 
imagery, which has made Dante the shrine at 
which great hearts still worship. It is rather 
the awfulness of sin, the mighty struggle out 
of sin, the glory of the redeemed, pictured with 
such grandeur and majesty that the human 
soul which has approached the magnificent 
temple of the Divine Comedy feels that it has 
renewed its own dignity and worth. Why is it 
that a Carlyle cries out to the souls struggling 
in the hell of materialism, " Close thy Byron, 
open thy Goethe " ? Has Goethe the literary 
polish and beauty of style of Lord Byron? Is 
it not that his strange and unsurpassed crea- 
tion of a Faust has proclaimed that all the cult- 
ure and erudition, all indulgence, all activities, 
cannot make life desirable until the great 
secret of living for others has been discovered ? 
How much grander and more helpful becomes 
mythology when we cease to study it as a 
source of certain facts which every cultivated 
person should know, and begin to realize that 
it is the far-off voice of nations calling after 



206 The Instinct of Imitation, or 

God ! Of what use are the stories of the labors 
of Hercules, of the wings of Mercury, of the 
transforming powers of Circe, or a hundred 
other tales of a childish race, save that we see 
portrayed in them the dim feeling of the hu- 
man heart that man must become the master of 
creation, must control the forces of nature and 
make them serve him, must be able to transfer 
himself with little hindrance from place to 
place, — aye, must govern his appetites or be- 
come beastly; in a word, that the God -element 
must conquer all the material outer world! 
Such truths are of value, though put by the 
child-race in such crude form; they are the 
more serviceable to the mother from the fact 
that they are expressed in simple, mythical 
shape, as the child-mind is better able to grasp 
truth in its poetic than in its abstract form. 
With thorough preparation within herself, any 
mother will naturally and almost without effort 
lead her child to value what she has learned to 
value. Mothers who are deprived of the gen- 
eral culture which books bring, can yet keep 
alive in their hearts the intense realization of 
the all-importance of the unseen side of life ; 
they can seek real people for their friends. 
Over and above all other avenues of inspiration 
they can keep their religion far beyond its 



The Training of the Faith, 207 

mere external, visible side. They can make 
it the sweet and holy impulse from within 
which shall control the inmost thought as well 
as the outmost act. They can make their lives 
such that religion is to them not the mere go- 
ing to church, the reading of the Bible, the 
performance of any religious duty, but that 
neai'ness to God which renders all these things 
2ijoy. Not until the mother has reached this 
state is she ready to lead her child beyond the 
petty temporal things of life, into a realization 
of the great and everlasting things. Truly her 
office is priestly, and great is the reward — the 
greatest on earth. " A life gift " Froebel calls 
this work of hers for her child ; and well may it 
be so called. Let her once teach him to see 
the difference between the great and little 
things of life, and she has placed him where 
no outside storms can trouble his serenity, 
where no sickness nor poverty nor lack of suc- 
cess nor lack of popularity can give him one 
inward pang. He is master of his own life. 
The petty aims of shallow people do not di- 
vert him from his great purpose, and the world 
exclaims, " Truly a great soul ! Let us draio 
near and gain strength from it ! " 

Does any mother-heart crave more recom- 
pense than this? 



.ID^^P 



